Trac Changes

The Future(s) of Publishing: On New Narrative Structures and the Digital Game-Changer

2012-02-02T07:00:00.011-05:00

A few months ago I attended one of New York’s most celebrated and original shows in years: Sleep No More. A loose interpretation of Macbeth that pays homage, in tone and mise-en-scène, to Hitchcock’s films, Sleep No More had me on its premise alone.

However, what really sold me on the show’s genius—and what’s earning it rave reviews and a near-perpetually extended run in its New York City home—is the fact that Sleep No More is less a show than an experience. The set is a world in itself, an entire hotel gutted from the inside and transformed into a ballroom, a graveyard, a mental hospital, a bedroom, a museum, a forest, and more. Silent stewards in black stand sentry in these little worlds but do nothing to discourage guests from trying on gowns in a hospital ward or peeling back Lady Macduff’s bedcovers to reveal the dark stains of blood. The characters are plucked from Macbeth’s playbill but rendered nearly unrecognizable by their 1920’s apparel, their danced rather than spoken dialogue, and their deliberate refusal to separate out into “main” and “secondary” characters. Unconstrained by the conventions that are so integral to most theater as to go unnoticed—that the character with the most stage time is the main character, that any information not delivered onstage is irrelevant, and that all stories unfold in a linear fashion—each of Sleep No More’s characters cycle through their own haunting story, leaving it to the viewers and not the writers to choose how little or how much attention each merits. And if the viewers become the show’s scripters, so too do they become members of its cast, underscoring the show’s themes of guilt and madness by flocking to its characters, costumed in ghastly masks that transform them into the physical embodiments of the specters that haunt Macbeth and the horrors that plague his cohorts.

Sleep No More is not nearly the first piece of experiential theater ever produced, but I’d argue it’s one of the first and most important shows to make full use of an emergent narrative style: a storytelling structure in which the audience’s choices and actions determine the story that unfolds. While each of the characters in Sleep No More follows a script, the sequence of events from start to finish is wholly determined by the audience. Each viewer’s decisions about what characters to follow, what rooms to explore, and what information to ingest creates a new version of the narrative. And while the play’s producers are able to influence its overall emotional arc through external cues like music, set design, and choreography, there is practically no limit to the number of unique experiences that can emerge from the elements the audience pulls together.

I am fascinated by Sleep No More’s complex narrative structure, and I’ve been reflecting on it in the months since I saw the show, especially as I’ve watched publishers and writers experiment within the realm of e-publishing. You see, I don’t think it’s accidental that this innovation in theater has occurred alongside similarly monumental innovations in the way we experience written narratives. And I’d argue that while Sleep No More is a reaction to Shakespeare and to Hitchcock and a rebuttal of the rather ridiculous notion that some stories are more worthy of following than others, it is also an expression of the growing understanding, of writers and readers alike, that stories do not have to be linear.

This isn’t an entirely new concept for the storytelling world. In fact, video games have been embracing this idea for decades, with a range of titles from the Fable to The Sims adopting non-linear and even emergent narratives in order to customize user experience. It wasn’t hard for me to draw a link between Sleep No More, with its file folders full of mental profiles for the show’s characters and telltale blood stains, and the video game Fallout, in which the player pieces together the tragic histories of several different fallout structures by sifting through clues in the debris left behind.

It’s not that books haven’t dabbled in this before now. The Choose Your Own Adventure series of the 90’s gained immense popularity among young readers who devoured its customized plotlines and read each book multiple times to uncover new experiences and twist endings, and countless spin-offs of the idea followed. But at best (and I say this as a childhood fan who looks back very fondly on the series) these books were clunky, prone to spoilers revealed when the wrong page was flipped past or the too-present temptation to return to a previous page if the chapter one’s choices led to wasn’t satisfying. And with the exception of the occasional artistic use of the non-linear narrative form, like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, this structure never gained widespread popularity in adult books.

The missing link is obvious: technology. The very physical form of a book enforces a linear narrative; page 3 must follow page 2 which must follow page 1, and so on. The end has to occur after the beginning because it lies deeper into the physical object—and short of breaking the unspoken rules of literacy (as Danielewski asks his reader to do in House of Leaves) we can’t escape that experience of one event following another in physical books. And just as removing the barriers of stage and seating from the audience’s experience of Sleep No More opened it up to an emergent story structure, so removing the paper-and-ink makeup of a book opens up written storytelling to non-linear and emergent experiences.

New ventures in the publishing industry are showing this realization. Coliloquy launched last month with the self-proclaimed intention of “taking advantage of new technology to reinvent the way authors and their audiences interact with reading and narrative.” To quote their press release:

By delivering titles as active content applications, rather than static publishing files, Coliloquy enables new kinds of engagement made possible by advances in electronic book distribution. Multiple “what if” story lines let authors and readers explore different permutations of character relationships. TV-like episodes can grow and change, based on reader choices, voting, and feedback. Fans can reread a key scene from a different character’s point-of-view or unlock new content.

Writers and publishers of more traditional fiction are recognizing similar opportunities for their own publishing programs, as the enhanced-e-book-turned-emergent-experience Chopsticks demonstrates. And while The Wall Street Journal pointed out in a recent article that interactive e-books and book apps have yet to prove themselves profitable, it nonetheless called the technological shift rocking the industry “what could be the most significant transformation of books and reading behavior since Gutenberg.”

Interestingly, one of the contributions of Gutenberg’s printing press to storytelling may have been the widespread adoption of linear narratives; Shakespeare’s sonnets weren’t bound into a numbered order until their first printed compilation after his death, and in the old bardic practice of storytelling from which the tales of Odysseus originated, a bard chose his next plot point from a collection of stories he’d memorized based on his audience’s whims. And now, in reading’s next major revolution, we could see a shift away from linear narratives once again.

That said, am I kissing plot structure as we know it goodbye? Are non-linear narratives and interactive reading experiences the future of publishing? I’d say no. And, well, yes.

Storytelling is an art older than written history, and it’s undergone more changes and existed in more forms than we can count. It will continue to exist in more forms and styles than we can predict. I truly believe that as long as there is reader demand for specific types of stories, be they linear or non-linear or interactive or emergent or anything in between, there will be people who continue to create and distribute those types of stories.

So no, I don’t think this is the future of publishing. I think it is a future of publishing. It is an exciting opportunity to explore something new, to meet demands that have begun to surface or that have existed for a long time and been satisfied in other ways, like video gaming and roleplaying. It’s a call to open our minds to the many different ways to tell a story, and an opportunity to experience and embrace the potential for literary quality in myriad types of media. And in that respect, I can’t wait to see the future of publishing play out, in digital and in printed form.

Everything is Starting

2012-01-25T07:00:00.012-05:00

It seems I'm not alone in feeling trapped by winter's doldrums right now. So, for all the rest of you who are feeling like I am, here is another piece of lovely that I turn to in wintertime. Perhaps it's a little early to be posting this (given that we've just gotten our first snow here in New York), but here's a poem by the incomparable Eleanor Rand Wilner, who told me and a class of writing majors at Goucher in 2006 that she wrote this in response to a friend who called and said, on a bleak midwinter day, "I feel like everything is ending, and I need you to tell me that it's really starting":

Everything is Starting

The snow is filthy now; it has been
drinking oil and soot and car exhaust
for days, and dogs have marked it
with their special brand of brilliant
yellow piss;
for a week after it fell,
the snow stood in frozen horror
at the icy chill, and hardened
on the top, and then, today, the thaw:
now everything is starting
up again—
the traffic flows, the place
where dogs pause, and sniff, becomes,
once more, invisible to us, and in
the gutters of our streets, a minor Nile
floods from the old drifts into the gasping
drains; even the sewers are jubilant
in the rush that foretells spring; the rats
dance along the pipes;
on all the trees,
the buds push against the sealed bark,
as if against the tight containment
of the past,
while deep in the Florida Keys,
along some slow canal, the manatees roll
heavily in the dark stream, the way that sleepers
slowly turn in dream, and the cranes look
up, unrolling their long necks, possessed
by restlessness just before
they fly...
light-years away, beyond the veils
of the Milky Way, out at the red edge
of creation, where everything is
always starting: there—a memory
shifts and gathers itself once more:
a memory of the time (if time it can
be called) when all that is the matter,
or all that matter is, is drawn into
one place, as if into a single thought,
and (unimaginable) ignites,
shattering the ageless night in which
the cosmos only dreamed,
and in the oldest memory
(of which I think
we have a share)
it was an endlessly unfolding flower
of fire—the rose of light that Dante
saw, its afterimage in the soul.
And from that flower, the seeds
of all the galaxies were
sown...
now, in our own, the snow recedes,
the buds will shatter the end
of every twig—as everything is
starting up again—the crocus pokes
its purple, furled, above the thawing
ground,
and when the local ember
of that first fiery bloom, our sun, touches
its silk with light, it will unfurl,
in perfect silence—unlike us, jubilant
and noisy, who never were the point,
but still delight in being
the sole narrators, upstarts of the dawn.

Eleanor Rand Wilner has published six books of poetry, including Tourist in Hell (2010), The Girl with Bees in Her Hair (2004)*, and Reversing the Spell: New and Selected Poems (1998). In addition, her work appears in more than 30 anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Poetry (Fourth Edition). Wilner’s awards and accolades include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Juniper Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.**

*"Everything is Starting" is the opening poem from The Girl with Bees in her Hair.

**Eff you, SOPA.***

***Seriously, though, buy Eleanor's books and support a ridiculously talented poet while giving yourself a present in the form of a really, really good example of how to do imagery and literary references right.

Getting Through the Winter Slump

2012-01-18T23:38:00.005-05:00

I have a confession to make.

I hate January and February.

Winter before the holidays seems fresh, crisp, almost magical. Winter after the holidays seems gray and dead and endless. There are lots of awesome things about those months—not the least of which is the long list of fantastic new books that each January promises. At work I'm as charged as ever, excited to share what's new. But outside of work, with the sun already lost below the horizon, I find myself receding ever so slightly with it.

So if I've been quiet, forgive me. A little bit of winter's grayness has gotten into me. I'm drinking tea, reading and mulling over books and manuscripts, and reminding myself of all the things that bring color into my life, all the gifts I have to be grateful for.

Anyone else been hit by the wintertime blues? Here's a present, if so. I fell in love with a folk band by the name of Tanglefoot as a high schooler, and on occasion they still do a good job of reminding me of where I find joy—and, in the case of this song, to cherish what I have and let the other things go:

Looking Ahead: Goals for 2012!

2012-01-04T07:00:00.005-05:00

In the spirit of making goals rather than resolutions, I'm hoping to do the following in 2012:

Personally

Learn to eat more healthily, and try to cook more.
Find reasons to be excited about living in New York City, and come up with several places and events that I can share with people who are new to the city.
Learn Spanish at least well enough to communicate on a basic level with my many, many Spanish-speaking neighbors in New York.
Make time for a vacation with my three best friends.
Go to at least five places I've never been to.
Look for the joy in everything, and truly investigate my reasoning for doing the things I do (Why? Because, as Cheryl Klein reminded me that Friedrich Nietzsche said, "He who has a why can endure any how."). Along with that, drop activities that I can't justify and stop wasting time on things that don't bring me joy.

Professionally

Set time aside each month to set and evaluate realistic goals for my own professional development.
Get an even firmer grasp on my new position, and begin volunteering for projects outside of my regular job description that interest me or that will develop my skills.
Make networking on a day-to-day basis as much of a priority as I've made it when I've actively been job-searching.

Hold me to them, reader friends!

What are your goals for 2012?

On Breaking New Years Resolutions and Meeting Lifelong Goals

2012-01-02T07:00:00.006-05:00

I made exactly two resolutions at the beginning of 2011: to rock the knee-high argyle socks off my job, and to read fifty books—five in each of ten categories I wanted to read more frequently. And, well… I didn’t do either of them.

I didn't do them, but in reality I did so much more. Rather than rocking the job that I had at the beginning of 2011, I came to accept that it wasn’t helping me get where I wanted to be, and I made the difficult decision to leave it for a much riskier but much more fulfilling position at Bancroft Press. And while I didn’t read all fifty of the books I set out to read at the beginning of the year, I read sixty-three books in total, including several manuscripts I provided editorial feedback for and a whole herd of books I read either to prepare for interviews or as a part of the new jobs I took in 2011.

In truth, 2011 was a year of accomplishments. I took a risk on a contract job in children’s books that taught me an immense amount and renewed my passion for the field, and from there I stepped up into an even better position in children’s books as the Assistant Marketing Manager at Bloomsbury & Walker Books for Young Readers. I not only survived the first two years out of college (someone once told me those would be the hardest two years of my life, and boy were they right), but I came out of them with flying colors. I moved to New York City, was tough as nails throughout a difficult apartment search and lease negotiation, and befriended roommates who truly make the city feel like home for the first time. I majorly increased the traffic to this blog and (in my opinion) upped the quality of its content, which has spurred enlightening conversations with wonderfully insightful readers all over the internet. And in less than five months at Bloomsbury, I’ve quadrupled the group’s followers on Twitter and helped brainstorm several innovative, exciting marketing programs and promotions for the company’s books, including a really exciting one for Fracture which I can’t wait to share.

2011 plucked me off every path I tried to walk down and plopped me onto new roads I never quite expected to take. It was a year that made me struggle to get a glimpse at my own future. It was often frightening or frustrating, and I was always aware that I should be controlling my own future and yet unable to do anything but hold my breath and leap or stumble forward. And yet, by its end 2011 saw the fulfillment of the goal I set for myself, however spectrally, in 2001—a goal I’ve been actively working towards since 2009.

I realized this late last November, when I stumbled across and reread my personal journal from 2009, the year I graduated from college. 2009 was a difficult year, as anyone who entered (or tried to enter) the workforce at the height of the financial recession can tell you. It dealt my self-confidence blow after blow, and I spent most of it struggling not just to heal my suffering self-esteem and decide what to do with my life, but also to feed and house myself in a city I couldn’t afford or bring myself to like. I remember it as a year of incredible downs, but I was surprised to find in my journal several moments of powerful hope. And, most poignantly of all, I found this moment of self-reflection from a week before I graduated from college and began that difficult journey:

I can remember back to when I was trying to choose a college, and I learned about Phi Beta Kappa and about Goucher's college literary arts magazine, and I told myself that I wanted to make it into Phi Beta Kappa and I wanted to be the editor-in-chief of the lit mag by senior year… I didn't think either of those things would happen… I can't explain how accomplished I feel, having fulfilled to two huge goals I set for myself a very long time ago, when I was a very different person, but just as driven. And I think that I will never stop being driven like that, and since I want to be in publishing so badly, I will never stop trying until I'm in.

And, what do you know, I am in.

It hasn’t been easy at all. A lot of times it’s been terrifyingly uncertain or incredibly painful. But everything I’ve done since graduating college has led me right to where I am now—happy, and doing the work I’ve always wanted to do. And whatever resolutions I’ve broken along the way, I’ve at least proven to myself, once again, that when I set goals I meet them. With flying colors.

Setting, Butt-Kicking, and Character Development, Oh My! My Best Book Discoveries of 2011

2011-12-20T07:00:00.022-05:00

With the holidays quickly approaching, this past week I’ve found myself spending a lot of time reflecting on the past year—and with it, the past year’s books. While as a book marketer I’m already looking at books that are a year or more from publication (we just launched the Winter 2013 list—yeesh!), as a reader I find myself looking back as often as I look forward. If you asked me what my favorite reads this year were, you’d find my list reflects that; it’s pretty evenly split between books I loved from 2011, books I discovered my love for in 2011 (though they came out years ago), and books I was lucky to read in advance and can’t wait to buy in hardcover come 2012.

Books I Read Early—and Can’t Wait Until 2012 to Read Again

---> Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Though I enjoy many books each year, it’s a rare book that I truly love. So when my roommate Victoria thrust this book into my hands, I think she and I both saw it as a chance to test whether our tastes aligned and we could trust each other to recommend books. The answer is yes. In Born Wicked, Jessica has built a compelling, convincing world that feels at once familiar and completely foreign, both reserved and darkly dangerous. The climax delivered such a skillful series of blows, twists, and reveals that I found myself breathless and begging for more when I hit the last page.

---> Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

I picked Scarlet up for the butt-kicking female protagonist—and there’s plenty of that—but I stayed for the love story. This book breathes new life into the Robin Hood story with characters that ring utterly true both as heroes and as conflicted, broken teenagers. The fast action and the book's many surprises kept me breathlessly turning pages. What’s more, amidst this wave of paranormal and contemporary romances, it was refreshing to read a love story that didn’t dominate the plot but nonetheless felt essential to it, and very, very right.

---> Butter by Erin Lange

Butter is the story of an overweight teenager who, friendless, teased, and out of hope, threatens to eat himself to death live on the internet on New Year’s Eve. When his announcement skyrockets through the rumor mill, he’s suddenly noticed—even liked—by his classmates, and he finds himself wondering if he can really go through with the plan—and if he has a choice in the matter. This book had me at its oh-so-heartbreaking premise, and it absolutely delivered. Erin doesn’t shy away from showing teenagers at their most brutal, but she nonetheless tells a story that is ultimately about redemption.

---> Throne of Glass by Sarah Maas

More butt-kicking! Celaena Sardothien is plucked from certain death in the slave mines of Endovier and whisked away to a glass castle to compete for the title of King’s assassin. All that stands between Celaena and the promise of freedom is a deadly competition, a chamber far below the castle that's full of dark secrets, and a host of traitors who make it impossible for Celaena to trust anyone—even the two men closest to her. A jaw-dropping cross between The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this book refused to let me put it down until I’d raced to the end. (Also, that art is fan art! So cool!)

Favorites of 2011

---> Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

I never fail to be spellbound by Laini’s lyrical writing and her oh-so-literary approach to storytelling. She took a commercial concept—an angel falls in love with a demon, and it does not go well—and surprised me with her execution. On a structural level, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is like almost no other YA I’ve read. And yet, even when the story’s pace was leisurely, I was completely and utterly captivated.

---> The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

The Near Witch is Victoria’s first novel, a lovely tale of intrigue, magic, and a dash of love. Again, it was Victoria’s literary style that pulled me into this one, and I can’t stop talking about her characters—including her setting, a moor that becomes a character in its own right under Victoria’s skillful hand.

---> Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

From a neurologist’s lens, Cordelia debunks the myths we’ve all heard about the genetic roots of gender, and builds a compelling argument for viewing gender as a social construct. I learned an immense amount from this impeccably-researched book.

---> Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls

In this literary middle-grade novel, a young girl grieving her mother’s death meets a mysterious man who can make flowers bloom and create roots, seed, and flower out of nothing. But if he can breathe life into a plant even in the dead of winter, can he bring back Molly’s mother? Season of Secrets is one of those rare gems that broke my heart entirely, and then stitched it back up again in the course of 250 pages.

And I Just Had to Mention…

---> Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore

Kristin’s characters! Oh, heavens, her characters. Katsa, Po, Fire, and Briggan are among the most complex characters I’ve ever encountered in fiction, and the emotional truths at the heart of both of these epic-fantasy-meets-love-stories are so well-observed and maturely handled that I have a hard time believing Graceling was a debut. Had the battles, chases, fights, and escapes of these novels not even existed, I’d still be singing their praises as finely wrought character studies. But married with plot, those characters make Kristin’s books some of the best I’ve ever read. I can't wait for Bitterblue!

How about you? What were your favorite reads of 2011? What are you waiting on in 2012?

YA Cover (and Cultural) Trends: Turning the Discussion Over to You!

2011-12-07T06:45:00.006-05:00

Writer and Publisher Friends, do you know you are the BEST at commenting? I hope the ongoing discussion of the sad, sorry state of women in our cultural consciousness isn’t driving anyone else to drink. (Are you feeling down? Do you need a hug? Here, here is an adorable malamute puppy for your sanity-restoring pleasure—but my flatmates and I call first puppy-hugging dibs.)

The discussions on my last two posts have been so well-informed and genuinely insightful that today I want to turn the spotlight over to you. The following are some of the comments and responses that made me stop and reconsider my position, that followed me away from my computer and onto the train or into the office or to my feminist lunch hour with Regina (hopefully a new tradition?), or that added something to the conversation that I couldn’t have added on my own.

Seanan McGuire wrote an interesting post on her own blog that, in part, provides a response to the common “But the cover reflects something that happens in the book” argument:

I've read several of these books. Putting a wilted waif in a beautiful bower on the cover is the equivalent of putting a wilted waif in a beautiful bower on the cover of Sparrow Hill Road. Yeah, Rose is long dead when the series starts, but why is that the image we need to focus on? Why is that the moment that sells the book?

I feel Seanan put her finger on the exact reason that I’m complaining about dead girls on book covers, and not about girls dying in books (though who knows, tomorrow is another day). The books I posted are far more varied in their themes and subject matter than their covers reflect, and the common visual ground chosen to represent and sell these books tells me something about the culture that created them—about the images we find worthy of our attention and gaze. What do you think? Are the cover images really the right moments of the book to be illustrated?

In both the comments on my original post and in her own forum post here, Ami Angelwings brought up another heartbreaking conclusion that can be drawn from the interest of girls in images that suggest their own deaths:

A dead girl's corpse is perfect. It's not going to get old, or get fat, or eat too much, or sleep with too many people, or the wrong people, or cheat, or be gossipy, or sinful, or talk back, or the million other things society demonizes about women and our passions, desires and appetites. We're just beautiful and nothing more, just like a woman should be. To be the perfect woman, you have to be dead.

She shares her experience as someone who has recovered from anorexia, but who used to struggle not only to reach a certain beauty ideal, but who rarely forgot that, once reached, that sense of perfection would only have to be maintained. Certainly that exact experience isn’t universal to all girls, but do you think it’s something that teenage girls in particular might be able to relate to?

Along a similar line of thought, an anonymous commenter chalked these covers up to our cultural fear of aging:

Could it be that the dead girl on the cover of the books appeal to teens because it represents a state of physical arrest? These dead girls in pretty dresses aren't growing, they aren't changing. The image is of a perfect, pale and pretty girl, one who doesn't have to worry about armpit hair, cramps, zits, college, jobs, PMS or becoming her mother. Being dead is great not because they hate their teenage girlish bodies --it's because our culture is youth obsessed. Being dead is great because it means you get to stay young. That's why vampire books are romances, and zombie books tend to be horror stories. Because getting old and rotting is something to fear.

Put in those terms, I can certainly see how this source of fascination could be more universal to girls, and particularly relevant to girls during their teen years. What are your thoughts? Does this change how you feel about the trend, or convince you that the fascination with death is more a part of growing up than a product of our culture? Or does it seem like even more of a product of our culture when you look at the trend this way?

Interestingly, the vast majority of the authors whose book covers appeared in my post said that they had never thought of their cover model as dead. Building on that, Aimee Carter tweeted, “I see life (or the fight for it, which fascinates me) in most of those covers,” and Holly Black weighed in with the opinion that the internal tension created by the questions these covers ask—either “is the girl dead?” or “will she survive?”—holds the viewer’s attention and makes the covers successful. What do you think? Do the girls on those book covers look dead? Does it matter, if the initial impression the viewer gets is one of death, or at least passivity?

CuddleBug looks at what would seem to be the antithesis of the dead girl cover—the butt-kicking heroine cover—and finds a surprisingly similar trend of passivity. She calls it "waif-fu": the cover image that suggests an active heroine but, through skimpy clothing and a supermodel pose clearly designed to show off more than her biceps (in fact, what biceps? That might make her look less slender!). Looking at the slew of covers CuddleBug features, it's hard to convince oneself that the audience they cater to is free of male gaze. And though I prefer a living, albeit sexualized, girl to a dead one, it's hard to see these as better role models for teens. As CuddleBug says:

Our options for female role models would appear to be either beautiful and passive young women posing around doing nothing in a pretty dress, or a beautiful ass-kicker who looks like she should be a supermodel. Who also, may I add, is not doing anything.

In this case, I don't think what causes young women to be attracted to these images is as much internalized misogyny as internalized ideals of beauty. Of course, one could argue that it's six of one and a half dozen of the other, but an excellent commenter on my last post did point out that there's a difference between misogyny and antifeminism. In any case, though, it does allow me to talk not just about these images, but also about a character trope that crops up frequently, especially in speculative fiction: the BAMF. Most sci-fi especially seems to feature at least one character that writers or directors can point to and say "Don't look at me, I put a strong woman in my work!" These characters are powerful, yes, and pretty evidently in possession of lady-parts, which is clear from their skimpy dress. But these characters are powerful solely in a way that's considered masculine. And while there are many women in the real world who kick butt and take names like its their job, the existence of those character types as the only strong female in a particular story world implies that there is no other way to be a strong woman—which simply isn't true. What do you think? And, is this a trend that extends to YA, or do you think it exists mostly in the world of adult books right now?

For Zoë Marriott, the fairy tale trope implied by a number of these images carries with it an even darker implication than what we explored in last week's post. To explain, she goes back to the origins of the Snow White and Sleeping Beauty stories, which existed long before the Brothers Grimm prettied them up:

What really happens is that a travelling prince, in the course of his adventures, comes across an apparently sleeping young woman who is unable to defend herself, and rapes her. Then he goes on his merry way. About nine months later, the girl gives birth to a child, and this experience (not surprisingly) finally wakes her from her slumber. And then (the part which always makes me feel the most squinky) the girl is so grateful for having finally escaped the curse that she goes after the travelling prince, thanks him very much for his random sexual assault, and ends up getting married to him.

This represents a fairly strong and very dark male fantasy - that of the unresisting victim. A girl who can't fight or struggle because she is incapacitated. A girl who, although unable to offer any kind of consent to sexual activity, of course actually wants it. A girl who will even thank you for it later on.

And that's an even more powerful and heartbreaking concept than what I originally tackled in my post about dead girls on covers and internalized misogyny. If these covers both imply and idealize not just death, but also rape... what does that say about our culture?

Glitter and Gore looks at horror, a genre in which you might expect to see a lot of dead girl covers, and finds traces of the dead-girl trend in re-releases of some of her favorites. What’s more, she sees an overwhelming trend towards passivity in the girls pictured:

What confuses me most is that, judging by the few of these books I have read, the heroines inside their pages are NOT submissive. They're tough, resourceful, and intelligent. Sometimes selfish or a little naive, but for the most part, they aren't at all like the images in these covers would make them out to be. But the covers are what entice people to read books, or should be. They are taking strong young women and turning them into prettified zombies.

Rae Carson tweeted something similar: “I wonder if it's a subset of a larger trend of passive female protags on covers? So many look simply vacant & beautiful.” Is that the more applicable trend here? Certainly that does open it up to include even more images we typically see in the media. It even ties in with the fairy tale tropes we talked about last week.

And finally, in response to my discussion of the fairy tale trope in last week’s post, Katherine Langrish came to the defense of fairy tales:

I'd just like to add that the fairytales most often cited in these comments - Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, with their obviously passive heroines, are not necessarily at all typical of fairytales in general, many of which have extremely vigorous and adventurous heroines: Molly Whuppie, the Master-Maid, Lady Mary and the heroine of 'Fitcher's Bird', both of whom see off the Bluebeard figures in their respective tales, and the intrepid heroine of 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon' who rescues the Prince. The fact that our best known fairytales are those with passive heroines is not a reflection upon fairytale as a genre, but upon anthology choices and rewritings made - often - in the early 20th century and perpetuated ever since.

I’m so glad she brought this up, first because I’d be insane to totally write off fairy tales as a genre, and as an absolutely vital part of the history of storytelling, and secondly because it brings up a ridiculously important point that I’ve only be tangentially addressing in my posts. That point is that the stories we choose to share, versus those we choose to silence or at least omit from our discussions, go a long way in reflecting or shaping the culture that we get to live in. The choice of which stories to anthologize—made again and again favoring stories with passive female protagonists—tells us a lot about the subconscious agenda of those making the choices. The choice to anthologize or retell the story of Snow White rather than the story of Molly Whuppie (much like the choice to illustrate the deal-girl scene of a book rather than any other) both reflects and shapes the culture to which it is told. And it’s a culture in which the stories of adventurous heroines aren’t told that allows passivity in women to be idealized in the first place.

Share your thoughts!

YA Cover Trends and the Fairy Tale Archetype

2011-12-01T06:45:00.003-05:00

There were so many fascinating comments on my post about the dead-girl trend in YA book cover design that I hardly know where to begin addressing them. But as I ambled over to the coffee shop where I write these posts, something about the sight of winter branches and the feel of warm air that lies of springtime turned my thoughts to fairy tales, and from fairy tales back to this discussion.

In the comments on my cover trends post, Suelder called my attention to her own fascinating reading of these images:

I think you may be missing a possible archetypal answer… In fairy tales, the heroine often undergoes death (Snow White) sleep (sleeping beauty) or some other transformation (Swan Lake). In order for the heroine to leave her childhood behind, there often needs to be a symbolic death. It can be innocuous, such as Rapunzel cutting off her hair, or something more literal (Snow White again).

That’s an excellent point, but, regardless, I don’t believe that that interpretation negates my point about the internalized misogyny that these cover images suggest. If anything, I’d argue that an archetypal reading only adds complexity to the problem.

The fairy tale death archetype, in and of itself, is steeped in some troubling implications. Another commenter, Penni Russon, said it wonderfully:

I was interested in the comment above about death as a transitional state in the fairytale narrative. I still think there is a troubling trend there - Snow White and Sleeping Beauty 'die' and are reborn through being loved as beauty objects - they awake to marriage. Even Rapunzel's 'death' in removing her hair is a transition towards marriage. If anything in fairytale narrative when a woman dies it is the autonomous self who dies, the rebirth is marriage and a dissolving of self into (an arguably more powerful) other, not a reinstatement of that self. I guess I am someone who doesn't think that being a princess is particularly empowering.

In truth, the “transformation” undergone by Snow White and Sleeping Beauty can as easily be viewed as a transfer of ownership from the domination of a wicked stepmother to the (albeit more benign, but still ruling) leadership of a prince and husband. That message is no more empowering for young women than the call to action to leave a beautiful corpse. And the obsessive “Disney-Princessing” of American culture is all the proof we need that the fairy tale archetype is idealized and internalized by many a young girl.

What’s more, I don’t actually think the myths implied by the fairy-tale-death archetype are all that different from those implied by the concept of the beautiful dead girl.

Another super-smart commenter on Kristin Nelson’s post in response to mine over at Pub Rants, Lucy V Morgan noted that fairy tales actually provide some of our earliest and most culturally ingrained examples of the beautiful or poetical deaths we see in art and on book covers:

If anything, both within the text and on the covers, many of these girls entered a Sleeping Beauty/Snow White-style near-death (ie they don't actually die in the book). SB and SW are probably some of the earliest examples of this beautiful "death" Rachel Stark talks about--Snow White was even put on "exhibition" in a glass case. Both girls were woken by their Princes.

So we meet these YA cover girls in the near-death before their Princes arrive (which is usually the case for the story), the implication being that the girl is not truly alive until she meets her "Prince". She is just on exhibition...

In fairy tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the Prince is usually moved to kiss the heroine by the beauty of her corpse—or rather, by the desirable qualities he projects onto her lifeless form. Sound familiar? If you recall Marina DelVecchio’s description of the dead women depicted in media as “merely a body, a vacant, empty, vessel intended to contain the needs of others—preferably men—and her body, which is the most desired aspect of her existence, perfect, lithe, smooth and hair-free, is open for interpretation and domination,” it might. Like the poetically dead girls of the book covers I called out, the fairy-tale heroine is the perfect blank canvas for a prince’s desire.

And just as the few men and boys who do appear dying on book covers tend to be depicted in an active, heroic pose, the men who undergo this death-as-rebirth archetype in literature tend to be much more active participants in their own transformations. To use the example that Suelder cited, Gandalf falls to his death in order to defeat the Balrog in the Mines of Moria, but he returns to a future that is drastically different from the futures of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. He returns as an independent agent, devoid of any of his prior doubts, possessed with a purpose, and not only powerful but also in complete control of his abilities. This, I’d argue, is an appropriate metaphor for the transformation from child to adult—so why is it that so few of the women who experience the fairy-tale-death archetype do so in this way?

The concept of death as a means of growth and rebirth is a powerful one in Western culture, and it seems particularly appropriate in literature for young adults, who are constantly shedding one version of themselves in favor of another, more experienced and mature self. Indeed, I agree with the many commenters who argued that death has an important place in YA. As writers, as readers, and as viewers, we shouldn’t shy away from images and stories of death. But, even as we recognize the transformative power of death—its nature as a doorway, as my roommate Victoria Schwab elegantly describes it—it’s important to examine how the nature of that transformation reflects and shapes our expectations surrounding gender.

Thanks again for all the great comments and the incredible discussion. More thoughts soon! In the meantime, tell me what you think of fairy tales. Is there a way to make the fairy-tale-death archetype a good thing? And on another note, how do you view death in stories? In YA in particular?

The Lifecycle of a Book: Author Publicity

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

So, once your book's lifecycle is pretty much finished and it's hit bookstore shelves, your work is done, right? Wrong!

Whether you like it or not (and I'll be honest, there are some serious pros and cons), a book's success is almost always an uphill battle. Though you've already heard about the great publicity work that's done before a book is published and the marketing that starts pre-publication and continues for (in most cases) up to a year after, the author's expected to pull a lot of the weight in terms of networking, social media marketing, and hosting and attending events. Learn all about it with Publishing Trendsetter and Adam Gidwitz here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Distribution

2011-11-23T07:27:00.003-05:00

There's one last stage in the lifecycle of the book: distribution. Distributors work to stay on top of trends and developments in the industry, and provide support for sales teams while also reaching out to consumer markets. Wondering what that means? Jenn McMurray of Greenleaf Book Group explains in Publishing Trendsetter's latest post here.

That's it, pals! Stay tuned for more content, including responses to the overwhelmingly awesome comments on this post on cover trends, next week!

The Lifecycle of a Book: The Book Buyer

2011-11-22T07:48:00.002-05:00

How does a book make it from your publisher to bookstore shelves? Who decides between the new bestseller and a stellar debut author? Are reps still relevant to the industry in the digital age? And what are these nasty returns you hear so much about?

Every bookstore has a buyer, and his or her role is vital to the industry and ridiculously fascinating. Learn all about it with Jenn Northington and Stephanie Anderson of WORD in Publishing Trendsetter's post here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Sales

2011-11-21T07:41:00.004-05:00

Sales might not be your favorite part of the lifecycle of the book (especially if you, like me, like to indulge your artistic side), but it may well be the most important; without sales, the industry couldn't exist! In the latest Lifecycle post from Publishing Trendsetter, Tamarra Henry from Macmillan explains how the sales department functions, the tools salespeople use, and how a sales pitch actually goes down. You can read it here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Publicity

2011-11-18T07:40:00.004-05:00

Publicists are the face of books, authors, and publishing companies, and they are constantly working to project the best possible image of all three. They brainstorm pitches, put their creativity into press releases and media kits, and perfect the art of follow-up. For those as creative as they are business-savvy, publicity is the perfect outlet.

Learn all about it from Jihan Antoine of Hachette's Grand Central Publishing with Publishing Trendsetter here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Marketing

2011-11-17T07:32:00.006-05:00

The publishing industry might not come with the multi-million-dollar budgets of the film and electronics industries, but that's no reason that authors shouldn't all feel like celebrities.

Nina Lassam of Wattpad explains how marketers work with authors to build their audience, and why their role is so important in Publishing Trendsetter's latest Lifecycle of a Book post here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Design

2011-11-16T07:35:00.005-05:00

Love your cover? Hate it? Blame it on the designer. Well... sort of.

To learn all about the cover designer's role in a book's lifecycle, and about just how many people and factors affect a book's final look, check out Publishing Trendsetter's interview with Regina Roff of (my very own!) Bloomsbury & Walker Books for Young Readers here.

And folks, I work with Regina just about every day and can vouch for her awesomeness. So, just saying, you might want to check out her video.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Production

2011-11-15T07:38:00.006-05:00

As vital as they are to the overall publishing process, production employees are often the unsung heroes of the industry. Give credit where credit's due; learn about how production fits into the overall lifecycle of a book with Ashley Horna of W.W. Norton and Publishing Trendsetter by clicking here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Editorial

2011-11-14T08:31:00.003-05:00

Ah, editorial. It's arguably the most coveted, glamorous role in the publishing industry, and it's the one that you, as an author, will likely have the most frequent contact with once your book has been contracted by a publishing company. You know about all the dotting of i's and the crossing of t's, but in reality editors spend very little time on that part of the process. In fact, most editors I know say they spend only about 20% of their working time on the actual editing of manuscripts.

To learn what else keeps them busy and involved in the publishing process, click here to meet Latoya Smith of Grand Central Publishing in the latest Lifecycle of a Book post from Publishing Trendsetter.

The Lifecycle of a Book: The Literary Agent

2011-11-11T11:11:00.004-05:00

The agent, like the writer, is in the lucky position of getting to see the whole publishing process from start to finish. Joy Azmitia is a junior agent at Russell & Volkening Literary Agency; learn all about the agent's role in the Lifecycle of a Book from her in this video from Publishing Trendsetter!

The Lifecycle of a Book: The Writer

2011-11-10T07:23:00.005-05:00

The first (and in some ways most important) player in a book's lifecycle is that of its creator: the writer. This one may be closest to home for my Writer Friends here, but you can still learn a lot from someone who's been through the submission process and gotten an agent!

Meet Adam Gidwitz, Writer, on Publishing Trendsetter by clicking here.

The Lifecycle of a Book

2011-11-09T17:15:00.002-05:00

Okay, so you've written your book—now what? The system that carries a book from your hard drive to a bookstore's shelf is so complex and multifaceted that, even if you're a regular scholar of the publishing blog world, there's a good chance you still don't know every intricacy of the process. Fortunately, the many awesome bloggers of Publishing Trendsetter have teamed up to give you a comprehensive look at the process from start to finish.

Trendsetter has gone behind the scenes to talk to tons of young industry professionals about what they do and how it contributes to a book's success. Over the next few weeks, they'll explore one department a day, and I'll link their posts here so you can share the wealth.

Puzzled by publicity? Dumbfounded by distribution? Or just wondering how it all fits together? Then look no further for answers than the grid below—and our daily posts!

(click and then choose "Show Original" to enlarge)

Risky Business: Forces of Nature, Acts of God, and Other Reasons a Book Can Flop

2011-11-03T07:00:00.004-04:00

The weekend’s unwelcome snowstorm (seriously, nature, how am I supposed to traipse about dressed as a steampunk masquerader if you insist upon sleeting everywhere?!) reminded me of a rule that’s universal, not just to publishing, but to any industry: the “sometimes sh*t happens” rule.

Like the folks in any business, the editors, agents, and marketers of the publishing world are extremely cautious. From a book’s acquisition to its editorial process to its cover design to its marketing campaign, few decisions are made without the input and approval of multiple departments.

Before a book is acquired, its potential sales are mapped out by its editors and then scrutinized by an acquisitions team. The house considers whether the manuscript is on a salable topic, whether the writing style suits the audience that the publishing house typically serves, how much editing and marketing will be required to make the book a success, and what the author’s and agent’s monetary expectations will be—not just for an advance, but also for an investment in terms of advertising and co-op dollars, travel costs for author book tours or conference attendance, and miscellaneous costs like unique photo shoots for the book cover or a redesign of the author’s website. Countless profit-and-loss statements are generated to prove that the project’s returns will be worth the investment. The manuscript is compared to projects being acquired by other houses to determine whether it’s likely to be what readers are looking for in two years (when it’s released as a book)—will it fit with a trend that seems to be gaining momentum? Will it be unique enough to stand out from the other books being released at the same time? Does it fulfill a need or an interest that readers in two years are likely to have?

That’s not to say that publishing houses never take risks, bring on a project out of love even though it might not make a good deal of money, or take on a project that requires a large up-front investment. I’ve seen all of those things happen when an acquisitions team gets really excited about a project.

But, though it’s important in all cases, in those cases it’s especially vital that the book’s production and marketing are carefully planned for success. The editor might see more of a chance of success for the book if it could be read by middle schoolers than by high schoolers, and might work with the author to simplify his or her writing to suit that market. The marketing team will help guide the editorial and production departments to release the book at the right time for relevant holiday promotions, back-to-school reading or summer reading lists, or to be released before a potential competitor hits shelves. Publicists carefully strategize about when and where to schedule tour stops and media campaigns, and marketers carefully plan to release buzz-builders like book trailers, chapter excerpts, games and more at the right time to build excitement just before the book’s release. Few elements of a book’s creation are simply left to fate.

But (without getting too philosophical on you), aren’t we all subject to forces outside of our control? Sometimes, despite all that good planning, sh*t just happens.

Sometimes a topic that looks like it will become trendy never quite gets off the ground. Sometimes a competitive title’s release date switches and there’s nothing your publisher can do to rush your book to come out first. Sometimes a major retailer decides not to stock a book, or to shelve it in a section that doesn’t really fit its content or intended audience. Sometimes a launch party is totally overshadowed by a citywide event that the publisher didn’t get wind of in time to reschedule, and no one comes. Sometimes a newspaper article gets pushed back or canceled to make room for breaking news. Sometimes an expensive online ad runs at a time when a major internet provider is suffering outages, and a far-smaller-than-intended audience actually sees it. And sometimes everything goes right with the book’s acquisition, editing, and marketing and publicity, but for whatever reason the book just doesn’t work.

Risk is a fact of life in this industry, and as frustrating as snow in October can be, there’s little to be done about it but hit the drawing board again and come up with a plan to counter potential losses. A first-rate publishing professional possesses not only an uncanny knack for predicting trends and outcomes and spotting the factors that usually lead to success, but also the flexibility to completely overhaul plans that don’t seem to be working as expected.

What does that mean for writers? To some extent it means that there’s no guarantee of success, which may be disheartening to hear. But because it’s understood that sh*t happens, it also means that you might get a second chance at success if your first, second, or even thirtieth book is a flop. Publishers and agents understand that some forces are outside your control, and with solid planning and the ability to learn from their mistakes, they might be able to engineer a past failure to become tomorrow’s bestseller.

How about you—has the unexpected ever gotten in the way of your career plans? How do you plan for success despite the risks? What do you do when your plans go awry?

How Dark Are YA Covers, Really?

2011-10-31T07:00:00.003-04:00

One last post on cover trends before we move on to other topics: I just have to share the very brilliant Kate Hart's analysis of the darkness of YA covers in 2010. Kate looked at 400 covers of Young Adult novels released in 2010 to see if claims that teen books were all dark were founded:

What she found was very interesting, and incredibly important. Because there's at least one very significant way in which YA covers are not dark, and that's when it comes to race:

I've talked about issues of race in and on the covers of YA fiction at great length before, so I'll let Kate's post speak for itself. I highly encourage you to check out the entire post here.

Cover Trends in YA Fiction: Why the Obsession with an Elegant Death?

2011-10-26T07:00:00.008-04:00

In honor of Halloween (sort of), and of our recent cover conversation, I want to talk this week about a ghastly, gruesome, and growing trend in YA book covers. What trend is that, you might ask?

This is where I say something I didn't ever expect to say in one of these blog posts: trigger warning.

Because the trend is dead girls.
Dead girls in water, dead girls in bathtubs, dead girls in forests, dead girls in pretty dresses. Girls who might be dead, or might just look dead. Dead girls in so many pretty dresses.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love a lot of these covers. Several of the covers pictured above are among the most eye-catching designs I’ve seen in the last year. But it seems like we just can’t get enough of these images, and it’s not just contemporary readers. More than 150 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe argued for the elegance of dead women:

“Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?” Death — was the obvious reply. “And when,” I said, “is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?” From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious — “When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.”

Poe felt that every story should end with the death of a beautiful woman (you may have noticed he was pretty good at following his own rule). And he wasn't even the first; the paintings of many Renaissance and Pre-Raphaelite artists reflect the same fascination as those teen book covers:

Even so many years later, the worlds of advertising, pop culture, and fashion have embraced this ideal, churning out image after image of lovely dead ladies:

However long its history, this isn’t a trend that I particularly enjoy—and especially not when it's embraced by women and girls as this trend seems to be. It’s been well-documented* that the media depicts violence against women and glamorizes abuse, rape, murder, and suicide as positive so long as the victim can be sexualized in death. Beyond just desensitizing viewers or making truly horrific acts seem banal through overexposure, images that glamorize violence against women help to dehumanize women and girls. It’s a double-whammy; not only are the women in the photos objectified because, as lifeless characters, they become bodies rather than people, but they are also reduced to their sexualized parts. As Marina DelVecchio explains in just one of many articles about the subject, the dead girl in media “is merely a body, a vacant, empty, vessel intended to contain the needs of others—preferably men—and her body, which is the most desired aspect of her existence, perfect, lithe, smooth and hair-free, is open for interpretation and domination.” Seeing women dehumanized again and again makes it easier for those who are violent against women to justify their actions—and, indeed, to carry out violence against them.

As we learned from my last post, the fact that the above book covers have been successful—the fact that the first impression they offer drives potential readers to explore more, impacting overall sales in a positive way—says something fundamental about the tastes of their target audience. So I can’t help wondering about the larger implications of these images, especially as part of a larger media culture that glorifies a great variety of disturbing images of women.

For months I’ve mentally classified these images among those that I find disturbing and frustrating in the fashion and media industries. But, now that I sit down to write this post, I’m not sure if that’s really what’s going on in the above book covers. Most of the images aren’t blatantly violent or overtly sexual. It might be more appropriate to call them glamorized—they seem less the product of overt “male gaze”**, and more the product of teenage girls’ morbidity. Rather than presenting the idea that violated and dominated women are sexy, these images present the idea that it is beautiful and dramatic and—as Poe would have argued—poetic to be dead.

Now, there’s something about that idea that resonates strongly with teenage girls. Anyone who has worked with teenage girls will know that many have an astonishing taste for that which is melodramatic, desolate, and downright morbid. Parents, maybe you don’t want to hear this, but an extraordinary number of teenage girls are fascinated by the thought of their own deaths. Even if they don’t (and I hope they don’t) actually take part in self-destructive or suicidal acts, most of them think about it at least once. Many think about it a lot. At fifteen my friends and I reveled in images of fallen angels, girls in coffins, and beautiful women dying in the arms of their lovers. We wrote stories about girls like us dying, falling prey to madness, or being found by a boyfriend or a best friend already too close to death to be saved. We adored moments in film and TV like Eponine’s dying lament, “A Little Fall of Rain,” in Les Miserables: a tragic scene in which Marius (who has rejected Eponine’s love—oh, she is such a perfect teen girl character!) holds Eponine in his arms and sings to her as she dies from a bullet wound.

The glamorized images of death that teen girls seem so attracted to could, then, be a reflection of the sadness and morbidity that seems inherent at that age. Perhaps their appeal is in the fact that they validate and make beautiful the very dark thoughts that girls have, and which they have few opportunities to express. Maybe they provide a sense of catharsis, allowing teens to explore the dark things they imagine doing without actually having to participate in self-destructive acts.

But teenage boys suffer just as much from depression and thoughts of self-harm as teenage girls do, and yet I’m hard-pressed to find a YA book cover in which a boy is depicted as beautifully dead or dying. The closest I can come is Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush. But it should be noted that the target audience for Hush, Hush is also female, and a comparison of the model’s powerful physique and active pose to the above girls’ placid, passive death poses suggests that these girls are internalizing very distinct and separate messages about ideal maleness and femaleness in death.

So, after a whole lot of thought, it comes down to this: I believe that this book cover trend—and the larger obsession of teenage girls with the concept of beautiful death—is at least in part the product of internalized misogyny. Girls, I’d argue, are taught from their infancy that their bodies are the most important thing they have to offer. But, at the same time, they are taught by a misogynistic media that their bodies are objects that have little worth, and that even allow or invite violence. And I believe that girls internalize that dehumanization very strongly—not using it to justify or excuse violence against women, but rather experiencing it as a call to action. A beautiful death becomes an understandable—and, for all intents and purposes, an encouraged—goal. It isn’t any wonder that teenage girls romanticize their own deaths. We practically ask them to.

I really want to say about this trend what I did about the normalization of self-destructive behavior in YA novels and the glorification of abusive relationships in Twilight. But, in all honesty, I’m having a hard time convincing myself that this is a thought pattern girls will wholly outgrow. To do so would require the adult world to reinforce the opposite idea: that women’s deaths are not beautiful, that women’s bodies are not objects, and that women are more than just the sum of their parts. And, as you can see above, the world of media for adults doesn’t contradict what we see in book covers for girls; it expands upon it and makes it a hundred times worse.

What’s more, it’s important that we see that the girls who internalize these ideals are living people, not just the passive victims we see depicted on those covers. As they learn to view the female body as both a sexual ideal and an invitation to violence, they begin taking an active role in helping it spread by reflecting it in their lifestyles, their values, and their art. That’s one of the reasons I cringe listening to “Love the Way you Lie” by Eminem and Rihanna; it’s not just Eminem’s graphic description of domestic abuse, but also Rihanna’s wholehearted compliance in and even propagandizing attitude towards abuse that makes the song tragic:

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn.
Well, that's alright because I like the way it hurts.

I don’t fault YA publishers or the covers above for this trend. As I said, I see those covers and the demand from which they stem as the product of, not the force behind, internalized misogyny. But, looking at them as a reflection of teenage girls’ psyches, I’m saddened by what I see and left feeling helpless in the face of forces that seem unstoppable. In the apt and succinct words of my good friend Jenny, “I know that we have to trust teenage girls to cope and persevere and come out of this fight kicking, but honestly I'd rather make all this shit go away.” This time around, I pretty much agree.

*See also this post on the fashion industry, and this one on fashion and advertising, and this one on music videos. And that's just from a quick search.
**For an explanation of the male gaze, try this article.

If you find this subject as depressing as I do, and are starting to feel like one of the teenage girls these covers are intended for, here's a video of an adorable kitten. You're welcome.

Edit: Just found this mini-rant on a similar subject by Allison at Reading Everywhere. Check it out! Even more disturbing images!

Go Ahead and Judge a Book by its Cover. Publishers Do.

2011-10-19T12:00:00.011-04:00

If you’re reading this, then I owe you a huge thank you for sticking around through my long, long hiatus. Thank you! It’s been a long couple of months as I split my life between Baltimore and New York, finally uprooting it altogether. Since I last popped in, I’ve settled into both my role as Assistant Marketing Manager at Bloomsbury and Walker Books for Young Readers and my new (hard-won, as any of you who have searched for an apartment in New York will know) home in Brooklyn. Some semblance of sanity is finally returning to my life, and I’m so excited to be back in action, and ready to share some insights picked up in my new role with you.

Making the switch from Editorial to Marketing has shed a whole new, fascinating light on the bookmaking process, and marketing meetings offer so many gems of wisdom for you writing and publishing folks that I hardly know where to start. But today I want to talk about the incredibly important work of a department that’s not my own—but which my department relies on even more than you might expect: Design.

Since you follow reading trends and keep up on publishing industry blogs, you no doubt know already that the statement “You can’t judge a book by its cover” isn’t absolute truth. You probably know that the time and effort put into a book’s cover is usually a reflection of how much its publisher believes in it, and that in many cases a really great cover actually does reflect really great content. And if you’ve been reading industry blogs (including this one) for a few years, you know that a cover can—rightly or wrongly—decide where a book gets shelved in a bookstore and whether a certain type of reader picks it up.

The truth is that cover art has always been a priority for readers. Scott Westerfeld pointed this out at an event celebrating his (gorgeously illustrated) Leviathan trilogy a few years ago; projecting the image of an early-twentieth century cover of War of the Worlds on the ceiling with his phone (that’s Scott for you), he pointed out that its illustrator had been even more important to the publisher than its author—the illustrator’s name was plastered over the top of the cover in huge, bold letters, and H.G. Wells was scrawled along the side only as an afterthought (I wish I could find the image to show you all, but I can't!).

That may seem like it’s no way to treat a writer who’s become one of sci-fi’s defining voices, but there’s no doubt that the book’s publisher created that cover with a mind to what would give the book the best possible chance of selling, and in this case that was the well-recognized name of a celebrated illustrator. But there have since been countless redesigns of the book, each reflecting the changing priorities of its target audience.

That’s not at all uncommon in the book world, and whether it’s repackaging a classic for a commercial audience, reprinting a book with the movie poster for its cover, changing an original cover to appeal to audiences in another country, or repackaging a book to sell to a different age group, publishers are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating book covers as tools for reaching untapped audiences.

What I didn’t realize until beginning this new position was just how much the onus for recognizing the success or failure of a book’s cover falls not on the design team, but rather on marketing and sales. The marketing department lives at the crossroads of the industry’s artistic side (your lovely manuscript, your editor’s vision for it, and the designer’s interpretation of the story) and its business end (the positioning of your book in relation to others, its ability to compete in a crowded marketplace, and the sales numbers the company needs to keep thriving). Through our sales team, we receive constant feedback from buyers at local, chain, and online bookstores about what readers are looking for.

Buyers are intensely aware of what readers are drawn to and what they skip right over, and they have the sales numbers to back up their opinions. Their knowledge is very market-specific; they know, for instance, what fourteen- to eighteen-year-old readers of dystopian fiction with a paranormal bent will prefer, and they might even suggest slight modifications that will attract some paranormal romance fans too, without alienating the book's primary market. They know what covers flop in certain geographic regions or with certain age groups, where and when to design a cover to appeal to its audience’s parents rather than the audience itself, and from their communication with multiple publishers seasons before a book’s launch, they know what new cover trends are cropping up and can predict which will take off.

All of that knowledge, gleaned from direct interaction with readers and buyers of books, trickles down from retail buyers and store managers to a publisher’s sales team, and through them to its marketing team. We communicate that back to design, and they listen, because getting a book into the hands of as many readers as possible requires the full support and confidence of everyone who has a hand in selling it. Book buyers make decisions on how many books to stock and how much prominence to give them on shelves based, in part, on their prediction of a cover’s success, and that push makes an immense difference. So every publisher does its best to make a buyer drool over as many of their covers as possible.

I’m very happy to be part of a small house in which every single book gets the very best cover treatment we can give it. Knowing just how far a cover goes towards making a book a success, my coworkers often redesign covers numerous times before printing a book, seeking feedback from the marketing and sales teams on each new look. And even after a book is printed and released, the marketing and sales teams carefully monitor feedback on the book's cover from its target audience, often suggesting creative ways to attract even more readers in reprints or new editions. We—or any other publisher—might create a new cover for a paperback edition when we don’t see the sales numbers we’d like, or when we think we might be able to interest a new audience in the book and thus reach readers we might not otherwise have found. Sometimes we release a new cover because readers are asking for it and we like to make them happy! In the instance of this special edition of Shannon Hale’s Forest Born which is coming out soon, the special edition cover appeals to older readers who remember the Books of Bayern from years ago, whereas the newer series covers appeal to a younger audience discovering the books for the first time.

It’s fascinating stuff, this cover design business, and I hope to be able to talk about it even more in the coming months. But enough of my chatter. What appeals to you in book covers? Do you think that marketing and sales should have so much say when it comes to a book's design, or should that be left to the creatives? What are your hopes—and fears—for the cover of your own book when it’s published?

On My New Job at (...wait for it...) Bloomsbury Kids!

2011-09-09T12:00:00.005-04:00

I can't believe how quickly August flew by, cats and kittens! I'm so sorry for disappearing on you—and for the fact that I can't come back quite yet.

But I did want to pop in and let you know what's going on, now that it feels real enough that I can actually say it and not be afraid I'll wake up.

Between the last week of July and now, I've...

...Moved out of my house in Baltimore, and...

...Become a permanent resident of New York City, and...

...Started a new job as...

The Assistant Marketing Manager
at Bloomsbury & Walker Books for Young Readers!

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to be a part of Bloomsbury USA's vibrant, close-knit, and utterly brilliant team of editors, publicists, designers, and marketers. I absolutely adore the company's books and am loving every minute I get to spend talking to fans, bloggers, librarians, and booksellers. What's more, I'm diving right in with trade and digital campaigns, and making full use of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook (links to our pages below; I can't wait to connect with you there!). It's too soon to talk about everything I'll be doing, but I can say that Bloomsbury and I are a very happy fit. We share the philosophy that good marketing is about strong connections, and that all books deserve a unique touch and a totally customized marketing program. I am very excited, not just about Bloomsbury's books, but also about the company's future. And I'm proud to help shape that future.

Follow us on Twitter
Or on our Facebook pages:
Bloomsbury Teens
Bloomsbury Kids
Perfect Chemistry, by Simone Elkeles (The #8 NYT Bestselling Series!)
Need, by Carrie Jones
The Drake Chronicles
Alyxandra Harvey
Shannon Hale

By the way, that image up there is from the cover of Jessica Day George's Tuesdays at the Castle, one of our Fall titles!

Literary Translation: Publishing the World (for a Living!)

2011-09-07T12:00:00.001-04:00

While she interned in the rights department of a French publishing
company, Samantha made plenty of time to travel. They say a book
can take you to a whole new world, but this is one step beyond it!

Unlike a lot of young publishing professionals, Samantha Steele knew she wanted to work in publishing early in her college career. In fact, she even knew what she wanted to do within the industry, and as a student at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study she designed a specialized major around her passion: literary translation. During a full year abroad in Paris (she’s bilingual), Samantha interned in the rights department of a French publisher, learning as much as she could about the passage of rights from one publisher—and one country—to another. Then, as my fellow intern at Scholastic, she focused on the editorial side of the bargain, reading countless queries in French and making recommendations for titles to acquire and translate. Now, as an Assistant Literary Agent at the French Publishers’ Agency, she combines both of those skill sets in one amazing job.

If you’re a fan of world travel, you read widely across cultures (or you’d like to start reading more widely), and you’re still looking for the right publishing role for you, you might just want to consider following in her footsteps!

Samantha raves about her job. “It’s exciting to sell a book in translation. It’s empowering to bring something from another country to America, to extend the lines of cultural communication a little farther. [At the French Publishers’ Agency,] we live and work in this kind of in-between space. We are not of France and we are not of America. We exist as a branch between the two and as such see things that no one else does. We are aware of two worlds at once, and that is both very cool and very weird.”

Like most publishing employees, Samantha’s hard-pressed to define a “typical day.” On any given morning, you might find her reading submissions from French publishers; writing pitches to American editors; meeting with agents, editors, scouts, and translators; corresponding with French foreign rights agents; helping editors apply for grants to fund translations; drafting contracts; processing royalty statements; attending editorial meetings; creating catalogs of the agency’s current titles; or all of the above. She also supports the office staff by working with interns, fixing the copier, running errands, and all those other typical early-career duties.

Since such a huge part of the job involves working directly with the text—or, sometimes even harder—singing its praises to editors who haven’t been able to read all of it, I asked Samantha how she feels about the books she works with. “Oh, the biggest perk is the books!” Samantha tells me. “Translated books usually stand out from the current publishing scene. That is the fun and the interest in publishing them: to add spice and diversity and a little flavor of the unknown.”

Are you sold yet? Want to learn more about how to get a job in literary translation, about the field's challenges, or about how the future is shaping up for the field? Take in the rest of my article over at Publishing Trendsetter!

The Near Witch Author Victoria Schwab on Self-Marketing, the Editorial Process, and Her First Novels

2011-07-25T06:00:00.001-04:00

I first met author Victoria Schwab in 2009, when she had just gotten a book deal with Disney*Hyperion for The Near Witch. She and I were the same age, and setting off on parallel paths (she as an author traveling towards her novel's debut, and I as an intern finding my way to a career in publishing) at just about the same time. So as I've been learning all about the publishing industry, so has Victoria—but in a much different way. Now, one week before her debut novel's release, she's been kind enough to share her perspective on the industry here. For some great insights on how to market your debut novel, what makes a great agent or editor, and how that first book deal will change your writing habits, read on! You might even get to learn a bit more about The Near Witch and Victoria's work in progress, The Archived.

Rachel: What were your writing habits like in college, when you wrote your first novel?

Victoria: Oh, man. Well, I started my very first book as a junior, and had no earthly idea what I was doing. It landed me an agent the summer before senior year, and it went on sub, but didn't sell. I started writing The Near Witch as a second semester senior while also writing an interdisciplinary thesis in a studio major (roughly 12 hours in studio a day) so my method became one of not sleeping. Or at least, not sleeping much. I blocked out 9:00-11:00 pm each night, and forced myself to go to Kayak's, this awesome coffee shop half a mile from my apartment, and a block from campus (I could reach it easily from either place). Most nights I returned to studio around 11:00 pm (when the coffee shop closed). But The Near Witch was written entirely in Kayak's. Small, steady bites over the course of the semester. I finished the draft a week before my thesis presentation. I probably looked like a zombie.

R: How did your writing and revision habits change when you started working with your agent (Holly Root)? How about when you started working with your editor (Abby Ranger)?

V: My habits changed when I graduated, in that I suddenly had TIME to write. Most days I don't actually believe they changed for the better. But having an agent (Holly is actually my second) helped in that it gave my non-paying, full-time hobby both a dose of validity and a dose of accountability.

My habits changed A LOT when I got an editor. And not just ANY editor. I landed Abby the summer after I graduated, and she is terrifying. And brilliant. She taught me the meaning of discipline, but also of patience. I was never patient with anything before I started working with her. I'd been taught to power through, to finish and to do it as expediently as possible. But Abby taught me the value of walking away. Of thinking, and processing, and mulling. And editing. Oh so much editing.

R: You are constantly praising your editor and agent for their superhuman abilities to keep you sane. What shape do each of their epic sanity-bestowing powers take?

V: Haha, they really do. Holly has a full set of "ledge furniture" and we pull it out (metaphorically, though I have an idea of what it looks like) whenever I get a little close to the edge. She is brilliant, business savvy, hungry, and if she doesn't know the answer to any of my myriad questions, she'll find it in a blink. I could do one of those trust-fall exercises with her. I wouldn't blink. She's already caught me several times. And she lets me send her cute animal pictures on bad days.

And Abby. Abby has this brain. I don't pretend to know how it works, except that it functions in a very different way than mine, while still being compatible. We are a Venn diagram of skills and techniques, I think, and if she's not soothing me with her sense of logic, she's brainstorming, or helping me untangle, or just sharing in the adventure with me (and tolerating my many "hey look at this!" emails).

R: That sounds great; I should probably invest in some "ledge furniture," myself! And I bet anyone who's looking to become an editor or agent would love to be just like Abby and Holly. It sounds like they've supported you a lot through your revisions.

Let's talk about those. The Near Witch itself has changed a lot since you first wrote it. Can you share one change you made, big or small, and why?

V: You know, it's changed so much that I don't actually know if I can pick a single element. The way I think of it is that The Near Witch was a skeleton, just the bones (I was really very new at writing books) and over the course of editing, I learned how to make muscle and flesh and features and then put them on the skeleton in such a way that when it moved, they didn't fall off. They functioned. It wasn't bulk or plot or anything for that thing's sake. Everything strengthened the story.

R: That makes perfect sense, and I'll be curious to see if your experience with your next work is the same in that there isn't one "light bulb moment," so to speak, but rather a constant fleshing out.

From what I remember, throughout all of those changes and revisions, you were in constant conversation with fans online. You're a fabulous self-marketer, and you've clearly put a lot of time into connecting to your fan-base and spreading the word about The Near Witch. Is there one thing you've done to market yourself that you found particularly effective?

V: I sold in 2009, and was then told that, because the book wouldn't hit shelves until 2011, I couldn't really talk about my book. At all. For more than a year. It was imperative that I stayed on people's radars without generating premature buzz for The Near Witch. So, I had to start by promoting myself. And that's hard, but positively invaluable. By the time I could promote The Near Witch, I had a foundation. I had an audience, and not only that, but one predisposed to like me because they liked me. And that's not to say I haven't gotten less than stellar reviews from members of that crowd, but the people who love it, and have been with me since the beginning, are so wonderfully supportive and vocal.

R: What advice would you give to authors—or even publishers—about marketing books?

V: Start early, and be willing to engage. I didn't sit on a stool and talk TO the internet. It wasn't one-way. I made friends (and none of this was for the sole purpose of marketing. If anything, it was to keep me sane, to have people while I waited, and they really are the reason I made it through), and as my following grew, I continued to engage. I'll never be a "collector," one of those authors only concerned with the number of eyes on her at any point. I built, and continue to build, a community. I don't rely on my book to do all the work. So many people overlook the human component, some willingly, and some simply naive, but I've found that being accessible and engaging as a person, rather than hiding behind my work, has been so, so good, for both my sanity, and my marketing.

R: Sounds like you really knew what you were doing, even as a debut author! But what surprised you most about the publishing process?

V: IT'S SOOOOO SLOW. Until it's not. And then it is again.

R: What's the toughest criticism you've gotten as an author?

V: Oh, probably that I value the poetry more than the plot. Which stings, because it's not intentional. This book has been an immense journey for me as an author, and it's my debut, and as far as I've come, I am still growing. I came INTO this with a strong ear for language, and have been learning how to use it. So it's less about my preference for poetry (though I really, really love words) and more that I'm learning. But in my defense, The Near Witch is written the WAY it is very, very intentionally.

R: I totally agree that The Near Witch's style is intentional—and very effective. The language is so beautiful that the book's voice becomes a character in itself. And I think you've grown tremendously as a writer in the time that your audience has been following you, which makes me all the more excited to read your next novel. So how about the other side of that question: what's the best compliment you've gotten?

V: I think to date there have been 5 or 6 Neil Gaiman comparisons. Every single time it happens, a puppy cuddles a baby somewhere, or something. And every time, I have to sit on the floor for a little while. Oh, and maybe the "classic" thing. I've been startled (pleasantly so) by the number of people who think The Near Witch will last.

R: Pick one from each of the following categories:

R: Favorite sister from The Near Witch: Magda or Dreska
V: Dreska, because she's a little sharper. Literally.
R: Authors you could have as a mentor: Laini Taylor or Neil Gaiman
V: Laini Taylor, because I'd probably be so intimidated by Gaiman that I wouldn't be able to focus and learn.
R: The only gift you can ever give your fans: narwhals or baked goods
V: Narwhals, because they are proof there is magic in the world. Also, then I can eat the cookies.
R: Favorite book to work on so far: The Near Witch or The Archived
V: I can't answer that. I've spent the last two and a half years looking at The Near Witch, so part of me never wants to see it again, and it hasn't even been released yet. And I've spent two years WAITING to make eyes at The Archived. So it feels like a stacked deck.

R: Finally, can you tell us something interesting about your latest project, The Archived?

V: My agent and I are constantly searching for the right "mash-up" to describe The Archived, because it's still a good ways out, and we don't want to give too much away. The current one is Buffy + The Shining + If I Stay. And I am literally shaking with excitement (and from within edits, no less, so that says something).

R: It does—though, of course, on my end the edits (well, the whole publishing process, really) are the most fun part! I can't wait to see what you, Abby, and Holly have up your sleeves this time around. Thanks so much for answering some questions here, and for having me along for the ride from book deal to publication with The Near Witch!

The Near Witch is the story of Lexi, who has always been closer to her father, who taught her to creep after the red deer and to touch it without its startling, and to Magda and Dreska, who speak to the wind and the earth and seem older than time, than to her fellow villagers. And now that her father is dead, her younger sister barely remembers what their family was, and her mother has taken to kneading and baking bread endlessly to work out her sorrows, Lexi longs for nothing more than to be close to the moor the way Magda and Dreska are close to it—or closer, the way the first stranger to come to town in ages seems to be.

Then, when the town’s children start disappearing in the whispering dark of the night, drawn out of their rooms by a wind that can speak their names, Lexi needs that closeness. She needs the moor to surrender signs of the children so she can track them; needs Cole, the stranger, with his burden of memory and his strange powers; and needs, most of all, to know the truth about the Near Witch. It might be the only way to save what's left of what she loves.

I couldn't put it down, and couldn't stop thinking about it once I did. You can pre-order a copy at your local bookshop here, so you can read it for yourself!

A Little Bit More on Twilight—And How About All That OTHER YA Romance?

2011-07-19T12:00:00.010-04:00

Thanks to everyone who read my last post and joined in on the discussion. It’s been great to see the discussion shared around the web, and your comments have been so incredibly insightful and enlightening. You guys are awesome, and you give me all kinds of hope for this crazy world of books and readers.

This week I wanted to share and respond to a comment from a new reader, Reinhardt:

My concern over a larger swath of YA is the emphasis on relationships that can serve to reinforce co-dependence (abusive and otherwise). How many books can you think of that have the main female character pining, needing to be with a guy to feel fulfilled? I think this is a more insidious issue, in that this co-dependence (especially of teenage girls, but not exclusively so) is already normalized, and has been for a very long time. Hey, I'm a dude, and as one of the few who like reading "girl books”… I find the predilection of characters who can only find true personhood inside a romantic relationship as disturbing as Twilight-esque relationships. Really, they are the same, only with different degrees of creepiness.

In short: WHAT HE SAID, GUYS.

This is something I discuss a lot with my friends and colleagues, but not something I’ve posted about on here before. Reinhardt pretty well hit the nail on the head.

Experiencing love and heartbreak for the first time is an incredibly meaningful part of growing up and finding oneself, and thus it’s no surprise that it finds its way into so many of our books, whether for teens or adults. And I’m not against love stories—my very favorite book, The Great Gatsby, is a love story (though it is also much more than that), and it almost always moves me to tears with its revelations about the human heart. I’m certainly not against stories that have love in them, although when the romance in a story becomes the subject of all conversations about the book, nine times out of ten I’m going to duck out or show my Team Katniss colors. And, like with the Twilight series, I’d be a fool to write off all the teen romances out there, both because so many intelligent, talented, forward-thinking authors stand behind them, and because it provides a booming marketplace that helps keep the industry and the books I love alive and well.

But, by golly, I wish there were as many YA novels out there that featured female protagonists who don’t wind up in a relationship as ones that feature girls who do.

The Young Adult genre is essentially concerned with coming of age. By their very nature, YA novels take a character from childhood to adulthood, from trying different selves on for size to “finding oneself.” And because of that, these novels are usually structured so that the most exciting and important point in the plot, the climax, is also the moment at which the protagonist completes (or makes the novel’s most major step on) her journey from childhood to adulthood, from indecision to agency.

And because of that, I often feel that the climaxes of Young Adult romances, which always seem to be the moment at which the protagonist finally gets with her or his love interest, inadvertently convey the message that we are not whole—that we cannot find ourselves—until we are with another person.

What is more true is that we cannot be with another person (at least, not in a healthy way) until we have found ourselves. That’s why I always find that I enjoy stories about girls having adventures or living their lives more than I enjoy stories about girls getting the guy. Sure, a lot of the former do include romance; think of Malinda Lo’s Huntress, or Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, or, for goodness sake, the Harry Potter series. But in these, like in reality, the developing romance is only one element of the much larger adventure that each character is living is her or his own life. And it is only one element of the story’s climax, or even a part of the falling action—the happy outcome that results from, rather than causes, the protagonist’s growth.

I firmly believe that the culture in which we live—and which we experience, understand, and perpetuate through the media we ingest—has a greater effect than any other factor on how we understand ourselves and the rules of the world around us. So I believe that, as long as such a huge percentage of the books targeted at girls in the YA sections of our bookstores or libraries revolve around the girl-gets-guy scenario, boys and girls alike will continue to internalize the belief that a woman needs a man to become whole and complete.

That’s why the books I want to acquire someday are the ones in which the girl fights the dragon rather than sleeping in the tower. I want to bring as many books as possible into the world that empower women to live independent lives with adventures in which they star. When I find romance woven into those tales, I want it truly to be one thread in a whole tapestry of real, human experience, which is just as meaningful and exciting and full of opportunity for women as it is for men. I want the girls who read the books I edit to be empowered to live whole, fulfilled lives, regardless of their relationship statuses. I want to normalize the diversity of human experience and shed light on the infinite ways in which teen girls—just like teen boys—can find themselves in this world. I want to balance out all the teen romance with all the teen everything-else that makes growth to adulthood so meaningful, so challenging, and so incredibly important.

What about you?

Oh yeah, and I can't resist sharing: Jen Hickman found these totally sweet images that are basically this blog post, but shorter, and illustrated (with R.Patt giving great face):

All praise Tumblr!

Waiting for the Right Monster to Come Along: On Twilight, Abusive Relationships, and YA Saves

2011-07-13T10:00:00.002-04:00

I had barely finished formulating my beliefs about the YA Saves controversy when I found them being challenged. But the attack didn’t come from the friends with whom I discussed the controversy, the worried parents of teens, or even from the supporters of Meghan Cox Gurdon’s article. No, the challenge to my beliefs greeted me coyly from the top of my to-be-read pile. Because the first book I picked up after the YA Saves controversy began was Twilight.

To say I dragged my feet when it came to exploring the Twilight trend would be a gross understatement, and it probably doesn’t surprise anybody that I’m not one of the world’s biggest fans of the books. Still, I give them a lot of credit; the series made countless people, young and old, into readers. The books turned a lot of already avid adult readers on to the young adult genre, essentially doubling the potential audience for many of the books I work on. They made a profit for their writer and their publishing house, and by spurring an interest in teen paranormal romance they’ve helped a lot of other writers and publishers turn a profit, too, in an industry too often plagued by low or nonexistent profit margins. As a member of this industry, I can’t help but be glad when, whatever the inspiration, people are getting genuinely excited about books. We need that fervor, regardless of what stirs it up. And, despite myself, I found many parts of the first book (mostly the parts devoid of descriptions of marbled abs, beautiful faces, or snowing-because-it's-too-cold-for-rain [wth?] weather) really enjoyable.

But when I think about the vast throngs of teenagers who have read the series and swooned over Edward, it physically pains me. Because no matter how many times Edward saves Bella’s life over the course of the series, that will never change the fact that, on their first date, he tells Bella he may not be able to stop himself from killing her. It doesn’t change the fact that he follows her, threatens her, makes all of her decisions for her, cuts her off from her friends and family emotionally and physically, instills her with the belief that his murderous impulses are her fault (she “has to be good” and not lose control of her urges when they kiss, so as not to tempt him), and attacks her when she says she’s not afraid of him, just to make sure that she learns to be. That’s just in book one, and it sure doesn’t sound like any healthy relationship I know of. In fact, I’m not the first person to point out that Edward’s and Bella’s relationship shows all the signs of an abusive relationship.

And while I may have some doubts about Ms. Gurdon’s claim that dark young adult literature normalizes self-destructive behavior, I do feel that Twilight normalizes—no, glorifies—unhealthy relationships. A glance at the popular website My Life is Twilight, where fans of the series share examples of how their life mirrors their obsession, makes my stomach turn. Here are just a few reasons why:

Am I the only one who gets shivers just reading that? Or, for that matter, whose skin crawled reading some of Edward’s dialogue in the novels?

And I’m far more upset about this glorification of unhealthy love than I am about the darkness Ms. Gurdon spoke of in YA lit. Typically, young adult novels that tackle dark issues like rape, cutting, abuse, and drug use at least communicate the very real and incredibly heartbreaking dangers of those issues. Most offer a glimmer of light and healing in their endings, conveying not only that healing is possible, but also that healing is necessary after encountering these issues—indeed, by implication, that they are unhealthy. In stark contrast, Twilight presents a frighteningly abusive relationship as an ideal.

Out of low self-esteem, a lack of inexperience in love, or manipulation on the parts of their partners, many victims of emotional abuse confuse their partners' abusive behavior for exactly what the books make Edward's actions out to be: signs of intense devotion and passion. That the Twilight series seems to encourage that confusion breaks my heart.

Given the rather frightening statistic regarding teens in abusive relationships and the fact that at least one in three women will experience violence in a relationship during her lifetime—and especially because I've seen the devastating effects of emotional and physical abuse firsthand—I’m extremely uncomfortable with Twilight's idealization of abusive behavior. So if you asked me if I’d like to stop teenage girls from reading Twilight, I’d really, really want to say yes.

But I can’t be both against censoring dark content in young adult literature and for banning a particular series because it exhibits a trend I find scary. I can’t both believe that teenagers are smart enough to make positive decisions and accuse these books of brainwashing teens. I can’t believe that young adults need to be free to own their own destinies and then try to prevent them from learning for themselves what healthy love is. And I can’t deny that, in relationships like in everything else, those who are drawn to darkness are going to find it regardless of how others intervene, and only they can decide to look for a way out.

So while I won’t be recommending Twilight to any of the teens I know, I can’t and won’t argue that the series should be banned. Instead, I hope that those who are as concerned about the dangers of abuse as I am will use the books’ popularity as a jumping-off point for conversations about what healthy relationships look like. I hope many librarians will learn from YALSA’s L. Lee Butler, who uses the book as a tool for anti-domestic and sexual assault education. I hope that parents, friends, and teachers will talk to girls about their own experiences (both good and bad) in relationships so that these girls can begin to decide for themselves what healthy love looks like. I hope that writers will come together to depict more balanced relationships in just as alluring a manor, and that teenage girls will begin to migrate toward stronger female characters and model their relationships off of healthier examples.

It’s reassuring that the first five comments teens made on the My Life is Twilight post that worries me most all urge the person who submitted it to question the healthiness of her relationship and to seek help. Though it’s easy to get caught up in the dream world of fiction, I do have faith in readers to sort out (sometimes through the mistakes they will invariably make) the difference between fiction and reality. And I trust that teenage girls will be smart enough to listen, strong enough to survive whatever path they turn down, and powerful enough to heal themselves and to heal others when it's needed.

I have to have faith in that.

On YA Saves and the "Normalization" of Self-Destructive Behavior

2011-07-06T12:00:00.004-04:00

On the weekend that Meghan Cox Gurdon published her now-infamous Wall Street Journal article decrying the darkness in Young Adult literature, I took a break from the #YASaves conversations on Twitter to have some fascinating discussions offline, with friends and roommates and publishing industry connections and anyone who would muse with me for a minute. I talked with friends about the article’s implicit assumption that YA as a genre belongs to privileged, protected young adults who can reasonably expect shelter from the horrors in many novels, not the many teens who are underprivileged and devalued by the very color of their skin or the neighborhoods in which they grow up (Sherman Alexie handled this brilliantly in his response to Gurdon's article, “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood”). I talked about the tendency of adults to forget that children are actually capable of handling a great deal of sorrow—that they even seek it out as a natural part of growing up and forming an identity (something I wrote about back in 2009). I talked about how that article related to the book I was reading at the time, and I want to talk about that even more next week.

Mostly, I discussed my feelings about one section of Ms. Gurdon’s article in particular:

The argument in favor of such novels is that they validate the teen experience, giving voice to tortured adolescents who would otherwise be voiceless. If a teen has been abused, the logic follows, reading about another teen in the same straits will be comforting. If a girl cuts her flesh with a razor to relieve surging feelings of self-loathing, she will find succor in reading about another girl who cuts, mops up the blood with towels and eventually learns to manage her emotional turbulence without a knife.

Yet it is also possible—indeed, likely—that books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures. Self-destructive adolescent behaviors are observably infectious and have periods of vogue.

Ms. Gurdon second article in defense of the original, published last week, went on:

For years, federal researchers could not understand why drug- and tobacco-prevention programs seemed to be associated with greater drug and tobacco use. It turned out that children, while grasping the idea that drugs were bad, also absorbed the meta-message that adults expected teens to take drugs. Well-intentioned messages, in other words, can have the unintended consequence of opening the door to expectations and behaviors that might otherwise remain closed.

Oh, how I turned that idea over in my mind! I want to disagree with the sentiment, but I can’t—not with my whole heart.

As a high schooler, I watched one friend of mine after another come to school with gashes on her arms. It happened over the course of a year; by the end of it, nearly half of my regular group was self-harming. I listened to discussions of where scars could most easily be hidden, how to acquire razors or scissors or sharp enough knives, and most of all what it felt like, why it was impossible to resist. My friends and I were dark teenagers, and our taste for dark books and films was insatiable. When I try to remember where we first encountered the concept of cutting, I don’t know which came first: the book I recall all of us reading, or the first person one of us knew who self-harmed.

Would we have encountered cutting outside of literature? Probably. Would it have seemed alluring, written in the scars on an acquaintance’s arms rather than the delicate prose of a book we treasured? I don’t know.

But do I think that the book “normalized” cutting, as Ms. Gurdon suggests? No. What I believe is that my friends, who were hurting immensely for all sorts of reasons, encountered what they thought might be a solution to their pain in those books.

Of course it was no kind of solution worth having. It was horrific. It made everything darker. At the time, if I could have saved my friends from going through that pain or stopped them from hurting themselves, I would have. But I couldn’t. So I waited. I hoped that things would get better, that they would find their way out of the darkness and into someplace lighter.

And you know what? They all did. They’ve become mathematicians and computer scientists and accountants and research assistants and neuroscientists and writers. They’re married or in relationships or single. Some of them make a lot of money, and some don’t. Some of them live with their families, some of them live with friends, and some live on their own. Some of them make art, and some make tools, and most of them somehow make the world a better place for a living. Last time I checked in with them, they were all happy. Isn't that what we all want for teens?

But we had to explore that darkness. If we hadn’t, we would have sat always in the sun, wondering, wondering what temptations the shadows might be hiding from our sight.

My mother called me a few weeks ago to talk about one of my teenage relatives. She was worried, she told me, by his behavior, the people he’s hanging out with, the hobbies he’s taken up. He’s dreadfully close to making a decision, she says, that could destroy his future.

“Let him,” I surprised myself by saying. “He’s smart. He’s going to realize, eventually, what a mistake it was.” I paused. “I mean, I did, didn’t I? And I’m okay.”

I believe that few mistakes are completely irreparable. And I believe that teens are going to make them, no matter what wisdom we impart, what measures we take to shelter them from darkness, and what rules we enforce about what they can and cannot see, think, and do. And I have faith in teenagers. I have immense faith in their intelligence, their capacity for survival, and their ability to heal. That’s what’s missing in these arguments about the darkness of YA lit: the faith in teenagers to navigate those treacherous waters—the faith that teens can and will find their way around to the right path, even if it means backtracking because they’ve gone the wrong way.

What are we so afraid of? That teens will make mistakes? Didn’t we?

And doesn’t every person deserve a chance to own his or her destiny?

They say that the only way out is through, and I believe it. When my friends and I think back on those dark times—and when I think back on the many stupid, painful, destructive decisions I made as a teenager and all the ways in which those decisions could have affected my future—I don’t want to go back and erase any of it. All that darkness became a part of the people we were growing into. It made us strong, it made us powerful, and it made us empathetic. It taught us where we didn’t want our lives to go, and in doing so it taught us what we did want, and who we were. And when our morbid curiosity lost its charm, and the horrific ways we found to patch up our wounds failed us, we started looking for a way out of the darkness. And we all found one, no matter how far in we'd gone or how many mistakes we'd made.

Because darkness lasts only until you seek out a place that’s light.

Edit: Maureen Johnson and Meghan Cox Gurdon herself continued this debate today on WHYY. If you missed the show, catch up here. I was glad to note that one of the callers brought up what I do in this article: that what's missing from the discussion is adults' faith in teenagers' intelligence and ability to make decisions.

Manga and the Mainstream: A Tempestuous Affair

2011-06-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago we discussed the collapse of American manga powerhouse Tokyopop, and the lessons spelled out in that end for publishers of both comics and mainstream books. This week, we’ll look at how comic books have interacted with the mainstream print industry, and how the loss of a manga megalith might affect the comics world at large. With the #1 company that primed manga readers (especially female readers, a huge chunk of the trade industry’s market) out of the picture, what will become of the illustrated novel?

The relationship between America’s mainstream trade industry and the world of illustrated novels has been rocky from the start. Censorship under the Comics Code Authority, established in 1954 to protect readers from inappropriate content, pushed the industry underground and spurred widespread prejudice against comic books. For almost fifty years after the code was created, comics were marginalized. “It’s really only in the last decade that the negative impression of comics and graphic novels in the States has changed,” Yen Press Publishing Director Kurt Hassler told Publishing Trends in 2009.

According to Publishing Trends, it wasn’t until 2005 that a large number of trade presses began to attend Comic Con, and finally began to recognize that illustrated novels might offer a piece of the publishing pie worth having. The comic book industry can thank Tokyopop for much of that attention. The teenage girls courted by the company made up one of the few readerships to consistently crossover to trade novels, and their interest in the genre certainly got the attention of mainstream publishers—particularly publishers of Young Adult fiction.

That attention helped comic book creators to emerge from the underground into the mainstream market. In 2006 Tokyopop partnered with HarperCollins to co-produce and distribute graphic novels. “Our partnership with HarperCollins will allow us to take the Manga Revolution to the next level,” Mike Kiley, Publisher of Tokyopop, said in HarperCollins’ press release announcing the partnership. And he was right—kicked off by Meg Cabot’s Avalon High, the comics that Tokyopop and HarperCollins launched together enjoyed great success. Both book-to-manga adaptations and original creations attracted a group of readers manga may never have been able to reach in the hands of independent presses. And though the partnership ended in January 2011, Matt Blind predicts that should HarperCollins ever decide to create an in-house comic book imprint, the company will find ample fodder in what’s left of the partnership’s books.

But despite the success of manga’s many interactions with the mainstream industry, publishers were predicting the death of manga in America as early as 2007. Though the niche market for manga remained and remains strong, it would seem that the growing rift between different types of comics was separating manga from many of the markets only recently opened to it. Graphic novels emerged as the “literary” form of comics most widely embraced by mainstream publishers—and mainstream readers.

So though it seems likely that Tokyopop’s apparent disinterest in its fans’ needs helped spur the company’s demise, it may have been doomed from the start. And if that’s so, then as a female reader and aspiring editor of stories for children and young adults, I can’t help but ask myself where that leaves the readers Tokyopop was so instrumental in winning over to comic books: teen girls. Where does the decline of Tokyopop’s immensely popular series—and manga as a whole—leave young women and the publishers who work to reach them?

Read the rest of the article at Publishing Trendsetter.

How to Lose a Job in Publishing

2011-06-13T19:00:00.009-04:00

Sorry for the radio silence of the past two weeks, Writer Friends! And double apologies to my lovely new followers; it was wrong of me to entice you with prizes and then fail to provide new and delicious publishing-related content!

But I've been doing a lot of exciting things that I can report about here, like collecting exciting ARCs at Book Expo America (they may or may not show up on this blog in giveaways; are you intrigued yet?). And interviewing authors for some new blog posts I'm cooking up. And brainstorming marketing ideas in the midst of a conference that pulls out all its stops. And collecting even more tips on how to get a job in publishing. Oh yeah, and meeting...

Tahereh Mafi, author of Shatter Me (also a completely delightful blogger/human being)...

and Little, Brown Editorial Director Alvina Ling, over whom I totally fan-girled like the editorial junkie I am...

and Laini Taylor, whose book, Lips Touch, has been an all-time favorite since my internship at Arthur A. Levine Books (No, really; it's possible that I rooted for it to win the National Book Award in 2009, despite the fact that it was competing with a book published by the company at which I was interning at the time.)

So you can forgive me, right?

There's another really exciting person I met at BEA whose face you might not recognize: my editor for Publishing Trendsetter, Elisabeth Watson.

That's us. Can you tell we're totally ecstatic about our first BEA experiences?

Aside from being one of the most delightful editors in the world (seriously, she used the word "swashbuckling" to describe a good idea), Elisabeth is one of the most put-together and professional people I've ever met. She's a fantastic reporter, a master of detail and organization, and an incredible ally to have in brainstorming, researching, and writing. I can't imagine a better person in her role at Publishing Trends, or at the helm of Publishing Trendsetter.

So perhaps it would surprise you—as it surprised me—to learn that, four months into her first full-time job in publishing, she was fired for "shortcomings too grievous to overcome." Believe me, the Elisabeth I know does not have many shortcomings. But imagine how she felt after losing her job—ashamed, overwhelmed, completely unsure of herself—in short, certain her career in publishing was over before it even started!

And yet her career wasn't over; Elisabeth is absolutely thriving in her current position. And what's more, she loves her job. She's an inspiration to me, and I wanted to share her story with you because I think it's one that's more common than many of us realize.

I’ve spoken to so many assistants in publishing who feel an enormous pressure never to make a mistake. We're all idealists in this field, and for that reason I think it hits us twice as hard when our careers are rocky. And somehow me manage to tell our authors that their setbacks are no big deal (everyone faces rejection, really, even insert famous author's name here) and yet be so, so hard on ourselves for our own setbacks. Heaven forbid we take the time to learn—you know, as entry-level employees do. Instead we put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves to never miss a comma, never send an email to the wrong address by mistake, never learn that some roles just aren't a good fit for us, never find our weaknesses. It's a competitive industry, we tell ourselves, and we're lucky to have jobs; better not screw them up! We take any small mistake like a bullet, and a larger setback can absolutely shatter us.

But if I've learned anything from graduating college, beginning a career, and watching my friends begin their own careers in other industries, it's this: beginnings are messy. Some starts just don't work out. And you build the path to your perfect job on the foundation of those broken dreams. You patch up your wounds and heal twice as strong, and if you really want it then you learn everything you can from your setbacks and you go after it again. And again. And again.

In publishing, I often feel that we don't talk about our failures, because we don't want anyone to know we can be less than perfect. Or maybe we're just so ashamed, because no one else seems to fail or even falter. Occasionally I look around at the entry-level employees I know and feel terrified. Surely they'd never make a single one of the silly mistakes I made in my first few weeks at my job. Surely they never struggle just to keep abreast of their workload. Surely they have something I lack.

But when I talk to fabulous people like Elisabeth about their paths, invariably I learn that they've sometimes stumbled too. We all do. Because publishing can be absolutely heartbreaking. Just like any career can be heartbreaking. At some point, no matter what we do or who we are, we all face failure.

When you face it, I hope Elisabeth's post helps you.

And remember: Once you heal, you'll love what you do more than ever.

P.S. Today's my birthday! Hooray for what my fellow sci-fi-loving friend calls my "successful completion of another journey around the daystar"!

P.P.S. Name this quote: "'Day' is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable... I didn't get you anything."

Tokyopop Closes its Doors May 31st

2011-05-27T07:00:00.001-04:00

What Does that Mean for Mainstream Publishers?

Tokyopop, one of America’s largest comic publishers and the company credited with popularizing manga outside Japan, will officially close its doors in North America on Tuesday May 31^st. The announcement, made April 15^th, didn’t surprise many followers of the comic book industry; rounds of layoffs had reduced the company to a six-person staff months earlier, and a collapse seemed inevitable even as early as March, 2011.

But how did the company reach the point of collapse when, just eight years before, Steve Kleckner reported it had been growing by at least 200% for three years and wasn’t even slowing? And more importantly for publishers of more mainstream products, what is there to be learned from it?

[read more]

From time to time, I'll be posting links to my posts on Publishing Trendsetter in lieu of posting here. I look forward to reading your insights, comments and questions in both places!

Young to Publishing, or Still Making Your Way In? Publishing Trends Just Launched a Blog for You!

2011-05-25T13:59:00.010-04:00

I'm really excited to announce that Publishing Trends has invited me to join them on a new venture, the launch of their Publishing Trendsetter blog. The whole Trendsetter team is dedicated to fostering dialogue and innovation among the new generation of book industry professionals—those within their first ten years in the business (and those aspiring to be!). With over ten regular bloggers at various points in their careers and with backgrounds in consulting, design, acquisitions, e-publishing, publicity, marketing, reviews, editorial, and more. We'll share our own insights; present research and analysis; offer Q&As, podcasts and surveys; and open topics up for roundtable discussions with young publishers and industry veterans alike.

There are a lot of great blogs out there for those at the executive level in publishing, and they all offer valuable insights on the industry and ideas for the future. But we are the future. With that in mind, Publishing Trendsetter is, in the words of our fearless leader Elisabeth Watson, "where the brilliant publishing minds of tomorrow are today."

I'm so excited to hear from you on Publishing Trendsetter. Click the banner above to go check it out!

The Epic 100 Followers Giveaway of Awesomesauce and Ponies! (Unicorns Are Included)

2011-05-17T07:00:00.013-04:00

It's about time I gave away something awesome on this blog; you guys have been listening to me prattle on about publishing without the incentive of free books and unicorns for long enough! It's also just about time for me to reach 100 followers, and I'm not patient enough to let the scales tip on their own. So! Here's how this is going to work. Please read all the rules very carefully; if you skip one, I can't consider you for the prize. To enter, you must do each of the following things:

1. Become a follower of my blog. (If you're already a follower, congrats; you're a third of the way there!)

If you don't have blogger, you can still follow me by clicking the RSS feed button in the bar on the right of your screen.
If you are a Facebook friend and read these posts that way, you still must become a follower through Blogger or my feed in order to be eligible. Sorry.

2. Share this contest on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, your own blog, or wherever else.

3. Leave a link to your post in the comments here, along with your email address so I can contact you if you win.

That's it! No weird point systems, no extra credit for posting about it multiple times (though I will love you a little bit extra if you do). Just join this site, share the contest, and let me know about it. You have until 11:59 pm on Tuesday, May 24th to enter.

What's at stake, you might ask? Well, now would be a good time to decide whether you're a stalwart defender of print books or a pioneer of new reading technologies because, in keeping with the title and theme of this blog, the prizes will encourage you to think about both. The winner will have a choice between these two fabulous prize packages:

The Traditionalist	The Techie
A copy of Zombies vs. Unicorns signed by Kathleen Duey, Justine Larbalestier, Diana Peterfreund, Carrie Ryan, and Scott Westerfeld	A subscription to The First Line literary magazine for your e-reader
A gorgeous handmade bookmark of your choice from bumblebooHandmades' Etsy shop	A Kindle, Nook, or iPod nano armor from ittybittyscraps' Etsy shop
These super-cute dinosaur pins (har, har, get it, because print media is going extinct?) from Etsy	This pretty pretty unicorn pin (also har, har, because e-books are supposedly the unicorn that will save us) from Etsy

I'll choose a winner using random.org on Wednesday, May 25th, and you'll have your choice between the two packages. If I get a super-overwhelming number of entries, maybe there will be a second winner who will get the package leftover. So what are you waiting for? Start following, sharing, and commenting!

Tonight on A Prairie Home Companion

2011-05-14T19:56:00.002-04:00

"You blew four giant holes in my manuscript!"
"That's called editing."

"Multicultural literature?! I don't know anything about that. We only had one culture back in the day."

Thanks, that'll be all ;-P

In Which I Share Some Exciting News!

2011-05-02T07:00:00.008-04:00

Dearest Writer Friends! I have been making changes in my life of late—changes to which I have made many an oblique reference and then cruelly offered no explanation. But today, I tell all!

During my second or third month as an Editorial Assistant, my company began to assemble a team to devise a new marketing strategy, and I was asked to come on board as the editorial department’s voice and liaison. I dove right in, but I have to admit that I had a lot of trepidation. Though I’d often been told that the best way to get a foothold in the industry was through marketing and sales, and I had sort of shuddered at the advice. “I'm an editor,” I would insist, “I do not like selling things.”

But in working with a team of salespeople and marketers, I re-discovered all the things I am besides an editor. I’m a designer. I’m a writer. I’m a socialite and a networker. I'm a person who loves to celebrate others and to collaborate with them. And that’s exactly what all the other team members were, too. I learned that marketing and sales aren’t about pushing a product at the market; they’re about meeting people, understanding their needs and motivations, and finding a way to connect them to solutions that make them happy. In publishing, they're about sharing your excitement over books you really believe in with other bookish people. And that is so me, Writer Friends.

So once I had a year of experience as an Editorial Assistant under my belt and I was starting to think about Next Steps, I investigated marketing positions as thoroughly as I was investigating editorial ones. And I’m really, really excited to announce that I’ve been hired as the Marketing & Publicity Associate for a local press! In the coming weeks I’ll begin training authors in social media best practices and promoting great children’s books through public events and print and online media. I can hardly wait to get started!

Does this mean I’m done with editing? Of course not! In fact, I am actively seeking editorial opportunities on a freelance basis, and I’m happy to provide a quote to readers of this blog for line editing or manuscript critiques (just email a short description and a word count to rachel.stark[at]hotmail.com). But during the day, I’m now a designer, writer, socialite, networker, celebrator, and collaborator just as much as I am an editor.

Thanks for sharing my excitement!

Shaun Tan on Growing Pains

2011-04-29T07:00:00.004-04:00

For anyone who still has doubts about the literary merits of writing for children, I challenge you to read this interview with Oscar winner Shaun Tan, author of The Arrival and Lost & Found, a collection which includes the story "The Lost Thing." (For those of you who don't have doubts, I still challenge you to read it, because it's Shaun Freaking Tan.) He has some wonderfully brilliant things to say about narrative, film, and illustration. But even more striking are his thoughts on adolescence and growing pains:

The Millions: There is a deep melancholy in The Lost Thing’s conclusion that feels even stronger in the book than in your film. It sounds like a meditation on the pain of growing older. I wonder if that pain is particularly acute in childhood, during which so much changes so quickly and so much is quickly lost.

Shaun Tan: That’s a good point: yes, I think that’s true. For adults, personal childhood objects tend to evoke a mixture of joy and sadness, which is a combined feeling that I really like, it feels very “full” and well-rounded. I don’t think you can really have one without a bit of the other, they define each other like complementary colors.

TM: How much are your books about adults? How much are they about children? Is there a difference?

ST: They are about both, given that every adult was once a child, and every child is heading, unavoidably, towards adulthood. I think too much is often made about the differences between age groups. For me the ideal state is to take the best of both worlds, something that every artist tries to do I think: the open-mindedness and innocent eye of a child, combined with the wisdom and experience of an adult. I think art and literature are such a great means of examining that intersection, and getting us to pay attention to all “lost things,” whatever that might mean.

**Also, my friend Julie is competing for the chance to fly to New York to be in the audiobook cast for Neil Gaiman's American Gods. If you love fantasy, check out her entry and consider voting for her! You can do so here.**

Publishing After Barry Eisler: What Will the Industry Look Like When Its Bestsellers Go Rogue?

2011-04-26T07:00:00.010-04:00

So, we all remember that a month ago Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 deal in favor of self-publishing, right? He certainly wasn’t the first author to have the idea that he could make more money by taking his books’ publication into his own hands, but the numbers made his announcement, as Joe Konrath said, “one for the Twitter Hall of Fame.” It stopped the publishing world in its tracks for a moment. And it got me thinking about the future of publishing.

In conversation, Barry told Joe:

…The new generation [is] looking at self-publishing differently... The question—“Should I self-publish?”—[is] going to be asked by more and more authors going forward. And… over time, more and more of them were going to be answering the question, “Yes.”

This is exactly what’s happening now. I’m not the first example, though I might be a noteworthy one because of the numbers I’m walking away from. But there will be others, more and more of them.

In all honesty, I think Barry’s right—there will be more and more authors who choose to self-publish as time goes on, and especially as digital sales continue to rise. As he and Joe agreed in their interview, it’s a matter of numbers: by self-publishing digitally rather than publishing traditionally, an author makes more money on every single copy sold.

Before you scrap your query letter completely, though, let’s take a look at those numbers. As Nathan Bransford explained in an essential blog post on the math behind publishing decisions, in order to make from self-publishing exactly what he would have made from that six-digit deal, Barry Eisler is counting on selling at least 71,633 ebooks. Can he do it? Probably. Assuming he’s already selling that many copies (if not more) of each of his books, it’s a safe bet that his large readership will stick with him and keep his numbers high.

Well, that’s all well and good if you’re Barry Eisler, or Stephen King, or Dean Koontz, or Jonathan Franzen—especially if you can count on your day of Twitter fame to sell copies of your book for you, the way I bet Barry Eisler can. But what about the little guys?

See, Joe and Barry agreed in their interview that publishers aren't needed anymore. But, as a great many writers and editors alike will tell you, there are some definite benefits to working with a publishing house.

Perhaps the most important, especially as writers’ need for help with cover design, layout and printing decreases, is the benefit of a devoted marketing force. The average writer doesn’t go from a debut novelist to a household name on his or her own. Sure, it happens—you need look no further than Nathan Bransford’s post and his numbers for Amanda Hocking. But it doesn’t happen frequently, or without the author (or a devoted team close to the author) having a very special skill set.

Publishing doom-and-gloomers will tell you that it’s only a matter of time before all the publishing houses go under, that the internet will eliminate the need for "gatekeepers," and that anyone can and will be discovered through the internet. But really, I don’t think that e-publishing is going to save every writer from obscurity. It will certainly increase the number of writers who have access to publishing, but will it increase the number of readers, or even distribute existing readers evenly among all the writers being published?

I don’t think so. If anything, e-publishing makes good marketing and curation all the more important. With more and more books vying for attention, it’s going to become that much harder to stand out. Editors, "gatekeepers" if you must call them that, who have a strong eye for what will appeal to people, and marketers who know how to reach those people will become more important than ever. It’s a hard, hard world for the as-yet-unknown.

So when I think about the future of publishing in the digital era, I wonder not about what will happen to the New York Times bestselling author, but about what will happen to the debut author, the writer of literary fiction, and the quiet novel with a niche audience. Publishers have, for so long, financed their operations through bestsellers and hesitated to take on a riskier project with a potentially small or difficult to reach audience. But if the bestsellers break away from traditional publishing, will the industry fold, or will it redefine itself?

Perhaps the strength of publishers in a new era of publishing will be their ability to devote time and attention to niche audiences, to find new talents and voices, and to develop literary projects for the devoted reader. The profits would be smaller, and the industry would change significantly. It’s hard to imagine that the big four could make this transition smoothly. But it may be that small, independent houses are in the perfect position to consider it.

I don’t really know what form publishing will take in the digital era. I agree with Joe Konrath that “paper will become a niche while digital will become the norm,” whether that takes one year or ten. I certainly don’t want to see my job disappear, or the good work of editors, marketers and designers all over the world become valueless. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that publishers need to be flexible and adapt to their evolving roles as technology changes the media it delivers. And I think, if finding and promoting new talent and literary voices were to become the new role of publishers, I could be okay with that.

But that’s just one theory—what’s yours? What do you think will become of publishing in the digital era?

Crossover Fiction: Making the Jump from Adult to Children's Publishing (Thoughts from CityLit Festival)

2011-04-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone who came out yesterday for my panel at Baltimore’s CityLit Festival! I had a great time talking about publishing in the digital era, and I’m looking forward to sharing some of my thoughts spurred by the panel with you. First, though, I want to highlight some of the great events I attended at the festival. One of the more interesting panels was the Women and Words reading featuring Elissa Brent Weissman, Amy Stolls, and Jessica Anya Blau. Of course I’m always keen to hear from women who write, but one of the things that interested me most about this panel was that all three writers had written for young adults or middle-graders, but only one had done so intentionally.

Amy Stolls made her debut with a young adult novel, Palms to the Ground (March 2005), and will follow it this May with a novel for adults, The Ninth Wife. Jessica Anya Blau’s The Summer of Naked Swim Parties was released in May 2008 for adults but also found a niche among teen readers; her second book, Drinking Closer to Home, was published in January 2011 and is aimed at adults. Elissa Brent Weissman was the odd one out as the author of three middle-grade novels: Standing for Socks (March 2009), The Trouble with Mark Hopper (July 2009), and Nerd Camp (April 2011).

Unlike Amy and Jessica, Elissa writes for middle graders and has never had any intentions of looking for a different audience. “I wrote Nerd Camp because I used to teach at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth, which I affectionately called nerd camp. There was this funny moment when I was sitting in a classroom full of new students, and they were all very quiet and awkward and not saying much until one boy asked how many digits of pi everyone else knew. They were all chiming in, ‘I know six!’ ‘I know fourteen!’ ‘I only know three.’ And that was how these kids related to each other.” She shared a funny, poignant, chapter in which a group of Nerd Campers discover that one of the campers can answer math problems—and maybe all the questions of the universe—in his sleep.

When I asked Amy Stolls to share some insights on crossing over between teen and adult fiction, she chuckled. “I didn’t write my first novel for the young adult audience; I just wrote it.” It was after writing the book, when she was seeking publication, that she learned that it was best suited to teen readers. “At first, I have to say, it felt a little junior varsity,” Amy said. “But I’ve come to love the genre. Young adults really interact with their writers. They write letters, they blog about the book. I sort of felt like I was a young adult author all of a sudden, living among all these other young adult authors who really knew their audience. I felt kind of lost. But I really liked it.”

On the other hand, Jessica Anya Blau wrote her first novel for adults and saw it marketed to them initially. “The Summer of Naked Swim Parties was published as a crossover novel,” she said. “We got it out there and got all the major reviews in and everything, and then a few months later we started pushing it towards young adult sources and publicizing it that way.” Though the book was written and edited with adults in mind, HarperCollins made the most of its potential audience by putting it out there for teen readers as well.

It’s interesting to me that the initial push towards two different audiences didn’t occur simultaneously at the start. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is common with crossover books, especially in light of controversies over books for which the crossover is surprising, like the debates that arose when Stitches was nominated for a National Book Award in 2009.

“It was a bigger deal five years ago, when we were selling my first book,” Amy said. “Back then you had to figure out where to shelve it. If it was for young adults, I had to worry that my friends walking into bookstores wouldn’t see it. Now, even though it hasn’t been that long, it’s not as big a deal to cross over because Amazon doesn’t separate books that way, and people are buying books online a lot more often.”

Still, will Amy or Jessica ever write another crossover book, or a novel specifically for the children’s book market? It’s hard to say. Neither of their most recent books are intended for teens, but it’s clear that both authors could cross over again if they wanted to. “With any luck, this author will continue writing young adult novels,” Jeffrey Hastings said of Amy Stolls in a School Library Journal review of Palms to the Ground. And maybe someday she will.

The League of Illustrious Interns Unites!

2011-04-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Hey writer friends, have you landed that dream internship yet? Or perhaps you already have a dark and twisted past in internly toils.

If so, waltz on over to THE INTERN's blog and sign yourself up for the League of Illustrious Interns. I did. And shit is about to get tight.

This week, four super-awesome current interns and myself shared their advice to writers, their insights on the industry, and their hopes for the future. Check it out here.

Favorite Passages: Yann Martel on Suffering, Faith, and the Universe

2011-04-11T07:00:00.006-04:00

photograph by Dominic Kamp

Often during the most difficult times in my life—bleak nights when I realize that whatever outcome I've been fighting against is inevitable, and I fall out of myself, helpless—my mind wanders back to this passage from Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

It's one of my favorite passages from all contemporary literature, in part because it reminds me of what I have always known: that this world is wild and unpredictable and enormous and ultimately beautiful and good. Oddly, in reminding me that I am insignificant, it makes me feel powerful enough to carry on.

The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark. The sea lay quietly, bathed in a shy, light-footed light, a dancing play of black and silver that extended without limits all about me. The volume of things was confounding—the volume of air above me, the volume of water around and beneath me. I was half-moved, half-terrified. I felt like the sage Markandeya, who fell out of Vishnu's mouth while Vishnu was sleeping and so beheld the entire universe, everything that there is. Before the sage could die of fright, Vishnu awoke and took him back into his mouth. For the first time I noticed—as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next—that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right.

What quotes do you return to again and again?

Baltimore's CityLit Festival Presents Publishing in the Digital Era: A Panel for Publishing's Progressive Thinkers!

2011-04-08T07:00:00.005-04:00

Dear illustrious readers! It is nearly time for Baltimore's CityLit Festival at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Which means it's nearly time for our panel, Publishing in the Digital Era. The festival is one week from tomorrow on Saturday, April 16th. Exciting events will go on all day, but my event is at 3:30 pm in the library's Poe Room.

In case you've forgotten, here's a quick description of the hour-long event:

E-books. Vooks. iPads. Technology is altering how we read and deliver literature. Co-sponsored by B ackList, this timely panel, composed of local writers and publishing professionals, will explore and discuss the ever-changing face of publishing—and what it means to writers—as we move further into the digital era.

I'm excited to announce the full list of panelists, which includes:

Charisse Carney-Nunes, Award-Winning Children's Book Author (I Am Barack Obama) and Founder of Brand Nu Words (digital publishing)
David Drager, Poet, Entrepreneur, Software Engineer, and Founder of Lit4.us
Allissa Richardson, Knight Foundation’s Institute for Interactive Journalism Grant Recipient for cutting-edge mobile journalism (“MOJO”) lab at Morgan State University
Myself, Rachel Stark, Freelance Editor and Editorial Assistant, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
and Moderator Felicia Pride, Professional Writer, Book Blogger for AOL, Publishers Weekly Contributor, and Founder of BackList, an organization that specializes in producing engaging and interactive content across platforms

I can't tell you how excited I am to meet and share a stage with all of these fabulous Baltimore creatives and entrepreneurs.
I hope you'll join the audience in asking smart questions, enjoying with rapt attention, looking on in awe, or throwing vegetables from the back row. Bring your iPads, Nooks, Kindles, and more for what's going to be an awesome discussion!

How to Get an Internship in Publishing: Michele Daly, Human Resources Manager at Scholastic, Tells All

2011-04-06T07:55:00.003-04:00

Michele Daly began her career in human resources in January 1981 at Newsweek, and she’s been hiring and developing talent in media ever since. She's worked with companies like Hachette and Conde Nast and acted as a consultant for Simon & Schuster and Random House. As Scholastic’s Human Resource Manager, she’s seen the best—and the worst!—in applications for Scholastic’s summer editorial internships since 2008. Last week, I called Michele to pick her brain on what you can do to make your application stand out from the crowd.

When she picked up the phone, the first thing Michele said was, “How are you? Where are you living now, and what are you doing?” She remembered that I began my publishing career as an intern at Scholastic and wanted to hear all about my current job. That’s one of the things I love about the publishing industry: everyone is deeply invested in the people around them. And it's never so apparent as when you talk to the people who are actually reading your applications.

When I started asking Michele the questions I had for her, it was clear just how interested Michele is in all of you! “Personalize your application,” Michele said when I asked how aspiring interns could improve their chances. “Write from the heart; give me a sense of who you are and what you can contribute to the field personally.” On top of that, she said, “show how much you want it. Tell me honestly why you’re interested, and mention that you’re willing to work hard and make all the administrative contributions—filing, sorting mail, and making copies—in order to have that experience.”

“I’ll never forget the candidate who wrote to me about how she first became a reader,” Michele said. “She told me a story about how much books meant to her when she was a child growing up in the rural Midwest. I knew as soon as I read her letter that I had to call her in for an interview.”

On the other hand, what turns Michele off to an application? “I recognize that it’s going to be difficult for out-of-state candidates to be a part of the program, so that’s always a consideration,” she says. But she also offers a way to get around that: “Think about how you’ll be able to house yourself in New York City ahead of time, and include that information in your cover letter if you’re applying from out of the state.” If you know the address at which you’d be able to stay—maybe a relative’s house in commuting distance—include it alongside your regular address in your letterhead. “Even just the sentence ‘I will be living in New York City from this date to this date…’ on your cover letter can be enough to ease our worries about that,” she suggests.

And, while publishers look for candidates with strong technical skills and a flare for social media, she cautions aspiring interns to be careful about what they put on the internet. “Make sure whatever’s in your Facebook profile or on your Twitter account reflects well on you,” she advises. “We’re a little more understanding of this in interns, but it’s just good advice in general.”

So aside from helping the company get to know you personally, what else is important in an internship application? “We look for a serious work ethic in every department. In editorial, where I specialize, we like to see that your major is related to publishing—you know, Communications, Writing, English Literature… or maybe something broad, like Education. And in our educational division, we’re always looking for teaching experience and the ability to sell.”

But if you aren’t an English major, or if you don’t have a lot of publishing background, there are other ways to show that you’ll succeed as a publishing intern. “Highlight your personal pursuits in your cover letter if they’re more relevant than your professional credits,” Michele says. That could mean your blog, your writing endeavors, past publications, your participation in a critique group, or your experience on the staff of a yearbook or school paper.

Most publishers value social responsibility, so Michele recommends including volunteer experience on your resume, even if it isn’t publishing-related. And if you’re interested in interning in children’s publishing, take advantage of whatever experience you have working with youth; “If you’ve worked at a summer camp, taught after-school programs, or even spent a lot of time babysitting, we look for that,” Michele says.

“But most of all,” Michele stresses, “let your personality come through. Tell us what your long-term goals are. Let us know what you want to do after the internship. We’ll want to hear from you afterwards.”

~*~

Scholastic’s summer internship program provides one of the best publishing experiences in the country, offering its interns a chance to make meaningful contributions and get firsthand experience, whether that means reading manuscripts or discussing revisions; fact-checking art or writing marketing and cover copy. Interns spend eight weeks working closely with mentors in their departments and networking with each other and the company’s key players—not to mention reading incredible books hot off the press!

This year’s application process closed early due to an incredible volume of applications, but you can still keep an eye out for internship opportunities during the semester by bookmarking Scholastic’s career website. Or, try some of these fabulous publishing companies in need of interns right now:

Thanks to everyone who tuned into this series on How to Get an Internship in Publishing! Don't forget to share your insights and comments. Was this series (or this post) helpful? Do you have more questions for the people who will be looking at your applications? Leave them here and you never know what might happen!

What Do You Wish for as a Writer?

2011-03-28T07:00:00.002-04:00

Hello, Writer Friends and Soon-to-Be Interns! I'm still planning a fabulous end to my series on how to get an internship in publishing, and I hope to have an action-packed post of epic proportions for you next week. Stay tuned!

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, though, I found myself not tying up the finale this weekend; instead, I had some down time to enjoy. Since the sun has finally decided to show its face again (even if the warmth is lagging behind), I took a long walk around my neighborhood. And just as I was returning, pink-cheeked from the wind and glowing from having discovered new pockets of magic in my much-loved city, I discovered this:

It's a tree of wishes! I don't know if it started as a school project, an inspired activity to pull our (sometimes tumultous) neighborhood closer together, or some bright-eyed artist's special little piece of whimsy, but it once again reminded me of why I feel so at home here.

And on the tree, I found this:

"I wish for everyone to feel loved even in their darkest hour. Hugs to you!"

And this:

"I wish my mother will get her life together so we can live a better live."

And all three of these:

"I wish the Republicans would shut the f*ck up."
"I wish the Democrats would shut the hell up."
"I wish we could have serious conversations about serious issues rather than resorting to political name-calling—Your political party shouldn't be rooted for like your favorite sports team!"

And finally, I saw a wish I know I'd like to echo:

"more trees of wishes"

What do you wish for?

How to Get an Internship in Publishing: Want to Know More?

2011-03-21T07:30:00.005-04:00

Thanks for reading this month's series of tips on finding an internship in publishing. I'm cooking up something special to close out the series—so stay tuned for that!

Over the past few weeks, we've discussed how to network your way to a position in the book industry (and not feel like you'd rather have your teeth yanked out), and some of you shared some great networking success stories. We talked about how to write a cover letter that catches an employer's attention. And, so you can better target your cover letter, your resume, and your overall search, we talked about the pros and cons of interning for different types of publishers.

There are some great resources on the web that can also help you with your search. For career advice from some wonderful editors and industry professionals, try these links:

Editorial Anonymous answers the question: How can I become a children's book editor?
Moonrat from Editorial Ass's Guide to Getting into Publishing not only includes some great job-search advice, but also gives you an excellent breakdown of the types of jobs in the industry.
Marian Schembari, who you might have read about here, talks about her unique, self-marketing-based approach to the job search
The Rejecter tells you how to kill it in your interview
Margaret Maloney's super-comprehensive post on working in publishing covers both jobs and internships, and is packed with amazing advice.
Editor Alvina Ling shares some great tips and how-to's for information interviews.

Now, if you've read all that and you're still hungry for more, I'll be happy to answer questions or offer more specific advice. Please leave your questions in comments; I'll do my best to answer every one of them!

How to Get an Internship in Publishing: Know What You Want

2011-03-15T07:00:00.007-04:00

Now that you know a little bit about finding and applying to internships, let’s talk about the types of internships you might want. While it might seem counter-intuitive to narrow your options at all when they're in such short supply, I do believe very strongly that you should define what you are looking for before you begin your internship search.

When I was first searching for internships and jobs, I thought that my chances of success would improve based on the sheer volume of applications I submitted, so I applied for literally everything that was available. I would research each company before applying and I put time and care into each of my cover letters, but none of that was an adequate substitute for the in-depth knowledge one gains by watching a company or seriously exploring a specific role through books, blogs and informational interviews. I rarely got a response to any of those early applications—even for roles I was drooling over. But once I limited myself to applying only for those jobs which I really, really wanted (in companies that I had known, admired, and even dreamt of working for) it was like night and day. Suddenly I was getting responses to almost every application I sent in.

Professionals know that, the more invested someone is in their job, the better they are at it. Thus, they’re eager to hear from candidates who they can tell are excited about the company as much as the role. So some solid advice for internship searching (and for life!) is know what you want.

First, you should of course think about what types of books interest you; what do you like to read, and why? What books do you often recommend to others? Will you publish for children or adults? Do you like a specific genre enough to want to specialize in that? Beyond that, you might want to consider the type of company you want to intern for. There are benefits and drawbacks to each:

Trade
Positions in trade publishing (the industry that produces books read for pleasure, whether fiction or nonfiction) are extremely attractive to most starry-eyed interns-to-be. The plus side is that they offer the chance to work with books you’d pick up in your own free time, so they can be a lot of fun. And, if this is the sort of thing that interests you, they are the most glamorous positions in publishing, since they offer access to well-known writers and maybe even the chance to work on The Next Big Thing. The down side is that, because the perks are so great, these positions are in high demand, extremely competitive, and often unpaid.

Academic
Internships in academic (textbook or academic journal) publishing can often be easier to come by and, especially if you have a great deal of knowledge in a particular subject area, are often very rewarding. Because the textbook industry is suffering the effects of the recession to a slightly lesser degree than the rest of the industry, these internships may be more likely to lead to full-time employment. On top of that, I’ve found that the people who work in textbooks are almost invariably down-to-earth, relaxed, and incredibly fun to be around. Because there’s less fame and glory to be had in academic publishing than in trade, you’re not likely to have many run-ins with prima donnas. The down side? Well, if you don’t like reading your college textbooks for school, you might not like it now either. And, because the textbook industry relies heavily on subject matter experts to write and edit books, you’re less likely to get hands-on experience actually molding the text.

Large
Again, the big companies—whether the Big Four (Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan) or one of the other large and established houses out there (Scholastic, McGraw-Hill, Disney Publishing, Chronicle Books, Little Brown, etc.)—often offer the most glamorous internships. The benefits of working for one of these companies can be great; many have established summer internship programs which, whether they pay or not, may offer seminars and talks in order to teach you about the industry, and will allow you to be surrounded by peers. Chances are that a lot of your favorite authors publish with the big houses, so you’re more likely to have a squee-worthy moment of author connection. And there’s no denying that having a big name on your resume can open doors for you later on. However, the drawback to an established internship program and a large company is that the type of work available to interns can often be administrative, with the really hands-on tasks falling to their own departments.

Small or mid-sized
On the other hand, a small or mid-sized, independent publishing company like W.W. Norton, Candlewick, or Bancroft Press (where I got my start) often allows and even encourages its interns to wear a number of hats. Because there is always a ton of work to get done and few people to do it, they are typically happy to get interns involved in many of the types of tasks they’d be expected to perform as industry professionals. Though they may not have large, established programs, small presses offer close mentorship and the chance to truly help shape a manuscript. The down side is that, while the actual experience may even be more meaningful than what some large houses offer, it could be more difficult to convey that to potential employers; without the name recognition, you will have to put extra care into your resume and cover letter in order to convey the value of your experience. And, unfortunately, a lot of small presses aren’t in a position to hire their interns full-time, and may not offer the connections that larger presses do.

Specialized or indie presses
Companies specializing in a certain type of books—like Lee & Low, which publishes multicultural children’s books, or Seal Press, which focuses on progressive books written by women—love to take on interns who share their interests. If you have a particularly strong set of values or a very focused interest in one genre, it might be worth your while to look for a press that shares those tastes. Often these companies are small and independently operated, so the benefits are largely those listed above, plus the added value of working for a cause in which you believe. However, specializing too much, too early can sometimes be a drawback; be careful not to limit your options for moving up in your career. Your internship at All-Robot-Space-Ponies-All-the-Time Books^TM may not offer you too many transferable skills unless you plan to spend the rest of your life working with books about animatronic animals. Which there may not be such a big market for. Just saying.

Alternative
Of course, there are countless other types of internships available. Working for a literary agency can offer close access to authors and connections at a variety of publishing houses; however, it may only lead to part-time employment and it's not a field for the under-confident or faint of heart. Assisting an author can be great if you connect well with your mentor—and it may even be particularly good for an aspiring writer if you can learn from each other’s processes—but it offers relatively few connections or chances for advancement. Some cities outside the hub of the publishing world are home to a myriad of companies providing developmental editorial and marketing services; these can be great companies to work for and may prepare you for a variety of jobs, but are likely to force you to specialize early.

Whatever you choose to look for—or even if you pursue some combination of these options—it’s helpful to seriously consider your skills and preferences before really digging into your job search. Once you have an idea of what type of internship would be a good fit for you, get moving on that internet research, compile a list of target companies, and start reaching out to them. Good luck!

What have your internship experiences been? What types of companies have you most (or least) enjoyed working for? If you're looking for your first internship now, what do you think you'll prefer? Let me know in comments!

How to Get an Internship in Publishing: Write a Strong Cover Letter

2011-03-08T07:00:00.012-05:00

Thank you so much for all of the positive responses to last week’s post on networking to find an internship in publishing, and especially for sharing your success stories! The great thing about networking is that once you start building a network, it seems to take on a life of its own; you can almost step back and see your friends group growing exponentially—and with it, your internship opportunities.

But nevertheless, there are still going to be places you want to intern despite not having a foot in the door already—internship programs that get your heart racing but seem totally out of your reach. The thought of an HR representative thumbing through a waist-high stack of applications with no reason to settle on yours is always nerve-wracking. But you can stand out from the bunch, even in a cold application. The key is to write an engaging cover letter that makes the reader want to learn more about you.

There are plenty of resources on the web that do a good job of explaining business letter format, the topics your letter should address, and the basic layout of a good cover letter, so I’m not going to try to expand on that here. And I am most certainly not an expert in the field; by all means, make use of your school’s career development office and friends and relatives who work in human resources for some more great cover letter advice. However, after writing close to a hundred cover letters for job and internship applications and keeping track of which types of letters have most often earned me a call back, I’ve learned a few tricks that can help your cover letter make it to the top of that stack of applications.

More than anything else, the best insight I can share on cover-letter writing is this: a good cover letter is just like a good commercial.

When you write to potential employers, you are trying to sell your most important commodity: your skills. Like the marketers behind any advertisement, you’re trying to hook your audience, to remain in their minds, and ultimately to inspire them to take action. To do that, pick up a few lessons from good advertising:

Shine early. The fact that you're required to introduce yourself and the position you're applying for in the first paragraph of your cover letter is no reason to bore your reader! Did the Old Spice man start his commercial by saying, “My name is Isaiah Mustafa and I want to sell you deodorant”? No—just imagine how lame television would be if every commercial started with a bland statement of intent!

I expect reading job applications can often be like watching a block of commercials that all begin the same way. Just think how quickly you’ll be able to grab your reader’s attention if, after reading the same lackluster introduction (e.g. “My name is Rachel Stark, and I am writing to apply for an editorial internship in your company”) a hundred times over, she encounters yours and finds the first sentence refreshingly different.

Offer a solution to a problem. So how should you start your cover letter? I formed one of my favorite strategies after attending a job search seminar given by the Director of Human Resources at Scholastic. He suggested finding out what problem a company faces, and explaining in your cover letter how you can help them solve it. I love this as a way to start a cover letter because it immediately highlights both your extraordinary skills and your knowledge of the company. Here’s an example:

As an editor dedicated to breaking new ground in the digital era, you must be looking for an Editorial Intern who is creative enough to make good editorial calls, but also tech-savvy enough to help you explore the opportunities of digital media. As an experienced reader, an avid social networker, and an amateur programmer, I can offer you exactly that.

But that approach is really only one among many that will work well! You can make a huge impact just by using dynamic, active language and varying your sentence structure. Interestingly, in this article published by Esquire, the author points out that the least conventional cover letter he submitted during his job search earned him the most responses. Think hard about how to best advertise yourself, and about what your audience is likely to respond to. Be humble, but convey your strengths with certainty—if you are confident right off the bat about what you have to offer, your reader will be as well.

Connect to your audience. This goes hand-in-hand with the tip above: in your cover letter, you want to convey an understanding of your reader’s needs and interests. Show that you are passionate and excited not just about the position, but also about the company. If you know the name of the person to whom you would be reporting and can read his or her blog posts, interviews, or Publishers Weekly profile to get a sense of his or her interests and viewpoints, even better!

At the very least, you should convey an understanding of what the role entails, of the company’s corporate environment, and of the industry as a whole. There’s a big difference between a big publishing company with a thumb in every pie like Random House and a small company with a defined mission like Lee & Low (we'll talk about some of them next week); these companies want to know that you are excited not just about interning, but specifically about interning with them. Let them know that you share a common mission, that you admire them, or even that you know how to make them smile, and you’ve gone a long way towards showing what a good fit you are for the company.

Tell a story. Don’t worry about cramming every one of your relevant skills and experiences into a single page; that’s what your resume is for! Instead, use the cover letter as a platform to tell a great story about your skills in action. If you’ve had an internship or relevant work experience before, try to tell a good story from your most recent experience. If not, never fear! Your leadership in clubs, societies, and part-time jobs is just as valid. Describe a problem or a need that you identified, explain the solution you came up with, and give a concise picture of the role you played in executing your strategy. Finally, explain the overall impact your solution had. For example:

In my third month at my current position, I volunteered to help lead a new, company-wide marketing initiative. I brainstormed ways to identify possible customers, streamlined the communication about leads, and promoted our books through reviews and advertising. The initiative’s success enabled the company to exceed its revenue goals despite the recession, and my experience will allow me to recreate that success in your company’s marketing department.

If your strongest story exhibits the skills you’ll be using as an intern but doesn’t directly relate to one of the internship's typical duties, feel free to spell out what you learned from the experience, and what it allows you to contribute to an internship position. Remember that in publishing we are all storytellers, and we connect most immediately with those who can tell a compelling story.

Those are just a few ideas to get you started. These are by no means hard and fast rules, and I encourage you to experiment and see what works for you. But if you put these ideas into action and get results, let us know! Or, if you disagree or have some other strategies to share, leave us a note! Finally, If you’ve taken a stab at networking in the last week, I hope you’ll let us know how it went in comments as well.

How to Get an Internship in Publishing: Become a Master Networker

2011-03-01T07:00:00.010-05:00

Mention the word “networking” in a room of college juniors and seniors and you’re likely to be met by at least a few groans, a shudder of disgust, and a palpable sense of unease. At the beginning of any job search, that word seems to conjure the horrifying image of a room full of students in business casual wear, pretending to be interested in each other and trying to stuff their homemade business cards into as many clammy hands as possible.

But, Writer Friends, there’s good news! That’s not what networking is. Good networking is just like making friends. No matter what field you’re in, success is often all about the partnerships you’ve formed and the people you can rely on to give you a boost. And your best advocates will always be your friends, so the biggest favor you can do for yourself at the beginning of a job search is to get out there and make some. Read on to learn how!

At the start of your search, you might find it most useful to start networking on a one-on-one basis. If there’s a small publishing company or literary agency in your area (Google it and you might be pleasantly surprised), find contact information for someone who works there and express an interest in learning about what they do. Often small publishers are willing to make time for a student, and though they're probably very busy, they’re likely not to get as many of these requests as the big presses do.

But what if you want to get your foot in one of those big doors, but don't know anybody? Guess again; chances are you know more people than you think. If you live near New York, almost anyone you know might have a friend or relative in publishing. Make sure those around you know of your interest in the field, and let them know you’d like to meet more people in the industry. Wherever you live, if your school has a creative writing program (or even just a class), the instructor is probably a published author—meaning she has an editor, a publicist, and a whole house that stands behind her work. If you’ve already had a class with that professor and dazzled her with your work, great! Politely ask her if she thinks any of her contacts would be interested in an informational interview. If you haven’t had a course with her, ask if she has time to meet informally and tell you more about her career; your next informational interview could be with her publisher. And if your professors aren't published yet, don't despair! They may at least have MFA's, which means they've had some opportunities to network with bigwigs and might still be able to recommend you.

Most people feel a sense of loyalty to their alma maters, so another good place to look for contacts is among your college’s alumni/alumnae. See if your college’s career center keeps a list of graduates and where they’re working. Contact the people who work at publishing companies, large or small, and ask if they have any advice on how to go from your school to a career in publishing. The plus side of talking to an alum is that you immediately have something in common—and your contact knows you got the same great education that he did, so he already has faith in your abilities!

You should be professional about these informational interviews (prepare questions ahead of time, dress nicely, etc.), but still look at them as chances to make friends. The people who genuinely enjoy talking to you are the ones most likely to keep in touch—so relax, tell a joke, and be yourself. Have fun. Remember that you’re both drawn to this industry because you love books—surely you know how to have a good conversation about that! You may hit it off more immediately with some people than with others, and that’s okay. Be genuinely grateful to everyone who shares their time with you, and try to keep in touch with all of them—but keep in touch especially with those people with whom you feel you really clicked.

Are you ready to start networking on a larger scale? Go to book-related events by yourself and be ready to introduce yourself to people. Talk to the attendees, the people running booths and, if you can do so without holding up a line, the presenters. Ask them about what they do and how they got started, and modestly mention your own experience and interests. If you have a particularly good conversation with someone, let them know you’d like to continue it over email or a cup of coffee, and exchange cards.

Then look beyond the book event and realize that everything is a networking opportunity. Your librarian? He knows people. Your local bookseller? She knows people. Your blog or twitter stream's followers? The barista at your favorite coffee shop (ahem, ahem)? You never know! Make a habit of being friendly, personable, and interested in everyone you meet. It makes for a happy life, for one thing, and you never know where you’ll make friends who might be willing and able to help you in the future.

Don’t ignore the other people who are just starting out, either. Right now you might not be able to offer each other a lot in the way of connections—and, awkwardly enough, you might feel like you’re competing for the same opportunities—but these people are your future colleagues. When they get the position they want, they’ll be happy to keep an eye out for a space for you and put in a good word. And when you do get hired alongside them, it will feel good to know you’ve already got a friend at your level in the company!

Once you’ve made friends in the industry, don’t be afraid to ask them for a little help—including a recommendation of a friend or colleague of theirs you could talk to as well, the chance to be their intern, or their endorsement for a larger, company-wide internship program. Most people will be more than willing to help you out. After all, especially in an industry like publishing, we all got here with someone else’s help—most of us are eager to pay it forward!

Networking has become my favorite part of searching for a new job or internship. The friends I’ve made in the industry have opened doors for me and, more importantly, made the publishing world warm and welcoming. When you look at good networking as making new friends, I trust you’ll feel the same way—and I also have faith that you’ll have a great internship experience and a bright career.

What’s your networking success story? Do you have any advice of your own to share? Leave it in comments! Or, do you have any questions? Do you want me to expand on any of this in another post? You know what to do!

50 in '11 Update: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon & The Lottery and Other Stories

2011-02-25T08:00:00.015-05:00

Happy belated President's Day, Writer Friends, and a hearty huzzah to good old Abe and Georgie for getting us some time off of work! Over the long weekend I did some traveling, and in three days read two of my books for the 50 in '11 challenge: Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Other Stories.

My first impression on picking up Where the Mountain Meets the Moon was that I was glad to be buying a copy; the book as a physical object is one of the nicest I've ever seen. The whimsical cover (which looks rather dashing with its Newberry Honor sticker on it, I might add) is just the beginning of what makes this book gorgeous. The interior is full-color throughout, and each chapter is dotted with gorgeous illustrations that stay delightfully true to the story's tone and themes. On the matte pages, Grace Lin's beautiful illustrations at the head of each chapter look like original woodblock prints so fresh the ink is still drying. I love the typography; from the title page to the chapter text to the subtly different font used for the text of stories told within each chapter, it feels comfortable, playful and perfectly suited to a story of fairy tales within fairy tales. The care put into this book as a physical item is obvious.

And for all the beauty of the package that contains it, the writing itself doesn't disappoint. Grace Lin has an ear for lovely language, and the world she creates is spellbinding. Her story is sweet without being saccharine, and I love how both the main character and the adults around her undergo believable, meaningful transformations over the course of the story. Grace Lin does justice to the many Chinese fairy tales that inspired Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and at the same time creates a new one to stand worthily alongside them.

I highly recommend Where the Mountain Meets the Moon for readers of any age.

I also finished Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Other Stories over the weekend. I'd already read "The Lottery," so I expected more dystopian sentiments from this collection. I was surprised to find, however, that while just as dark, none of the other stories seem to take place in any world other than our own. From desperation in the country to self-loathing and lonesomeness in the city, they paint a bleak, desperate image of the lives of women in America. Few of the stories accompanying "The Lottery" in this collection take on the same epic-feeling scope as Jackson's most well-known story, but they all make something epic of the sometimes inexplicable actions of anonymous characters. I'd love to pick these stories apart from a psychoanalytic angle; there's so much there beneath the surface.

All in all, another one I'd recommend, especially for those interested in learning the craft of short story writing. These stories, like so many great short stories, are about moments; they are glimpses into a characters' psyche. And they are brilliant examples of how that can be done well.

Thoughts on these books? Questions? Share them in the comments! Next up, I'm reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, a childhood classic that I somehow missed.

Want to Work in Publishing? Start by Getting an Internship!

2011-02-22T08:00:00.011-05:00

The weather warmed up this weekend, and maybe that got you thinking that summer’s right around the corner. No? Well, maybe not. But maybe you’ve noticed at least a few groups of people already looking ahead to summer; summer internship postings have been springing up on job boards at an increasingly rapid past these past few weeks. If you’re interested in a career in publishing, or even in exploring your options in the book world, perhaps you’ve noticed.

And good on you if you have! Whether you’re a student, a recent graduate looking for some entry-level exposure, or an established professional looking for make a career switch, you shouldn’t pass these opportunities up lightly. This may not be true in every industry, but in publishing a good internship experience is still one of the best ways to get into the business. They offer valuable exposure to the actual process of acquiring, editing, producing and marketing a book; they allow you to begin developing a discerning editorial eye under the watch of the industry’s most skilled players; and they give you a chance to make friends and connections who, in a small community like the book industry, will appear in your life again and again.

But, especially with the economy and the industry suffering, they can be hard to get, and if you’re feeling a little lost as application deadlines loom, I don’t blame you! I was really fortunate to hold five fabulous internships during my journey into publishing, and finding each one of them was an adventure. I don’t know everything about getting into the industry, but I learned a lot from each of my searches. And, Writer Friends, I’d like to share it with you!

So as you get your application materials together over the next couple of weeks, remember to stop by Trac Changes to see what’s going on. Each week I’ll post a new segment of my Guide to Getting a Totally Sweet Internship in Publishing. Topics will include networking, how to approach your cover letter, types of internships to consider, and more. But don’t shy away from those buzz words—this will be a lot more fun than going to your school’s career center. Promise.

See you next week for the first installment!

Update: In case you're catching up in reverse, here are the episodes:

WHY WRITE?: Literary Fiction

2011-02-15T08:00:00.001-05:00

Gentle Readers, it’s finally time for the last installment of the WHY WRITE?^TM series!

Last but certainly not least, let’s discuss that lofty ideal of writerly circles, the prized gem of the literateur: the work of literary fiction. No one can quite define what it is. Agents and editors may tell you they can’t sell it. But, boy oh boy, do we in the book world ever lust after it anyway.

So, why write literary fiction?

For the glory. Let’s not kid ourselves: if you want a National Book Award or a Pulitzer Prize, you’re best off writing literary fiction. If you want to be read in classrooms long after your writing days are over, or to be immortalized between Sherman Alexie and Margaret Atwood in some ages-from-now edition of the Norton Anthology, you’re best off writing literary fiction. Writers of other genres may have avid, loyal fan-bases, but writers of lit. fic. tend to find followers in high places. There’s something about the genre that, when done well, demands respect. Those hungry for fame, or driven to find immortality through fiction (and let’s face it, who among us isn’t one of those people, to some extent?) seem to find themselves irresistibly drawn to literary fiction.

Because you are devoted to—nay, even obsessive about—the craft of writing. How does literary fiction earn that kind of respect? Though every writer labors over their craft, it’s the authors of literary fiction who seem to take it to a near-obsessive extreme. They make keen observations about even the most miniscule of events, then make an art form of expressing them. Writers of literary fiction, even when they rise to fame on the strength of their novels, are essentially poets and short story writers at heart. They excel at saying much in as few words as possible; at expressing complex thoughts in a single, clever turn of phrase or a precisely-chosen word; and at drawing lofty themes out of even the most deceptively simple texts.

Because you have something to say… Because of its complex nature, literary fiction begs analysis. Think of Hemingway’s spare dialogue, which nonetheless can spur hours of debate, or Tony Morrison’s lush language packed with Freudian metaphor and cultural significance. It’s nearly impossible to pick up a good work of literary fiction and not have to wonder what’s going on beneath the service. Well-crafted lit. fic. reveals more of itself as the reader delves deeper into its elements; thus, it’s a natural choice for a writer who wants to be considered in academic circles, to reveal universal truths about human nature, or to comment upon or critique society.

…And you want to be taken seriously about it. As you’ll know if you read the WHY WRITE?^TM episodes on science fiction and fantasy, YA, or historical fiction, I don’t believe that literary fiction is the only genre that tells universal truths or lends itself to disseminating meaning. However, it may be the genre in which we most expect it, and thus the genre that gets the majority of the credit for it. Maybe it’s because so many of those who judge the merits of texts earned their laurels primarily by studying the last several centuries’ authors writing in the same style, or maybe it’s because the lit. fic. genre more than any other allows an author to strip her text down to its most meaningful elements; whatever the reason, the literary world does seem to take literary fiction more seriously than any other genre. The credibility gained from writing well in such a respected genre can easily transfer to your message—so if you want to be heard, literary fiction may be the way to go.

What are your reasons for writing or reading literary fiction, if you do? What have I missed?

And on another note, what did you like about this series; what did you not?

Let me know in comments!

Turn-Key: My Latest (And By Far Greatest!) Editorial Adventure

2011-02-10T01:00:00.032-05:00

Kayla got made when she was just seventeen. It was a fair fight, no surprises for anyone, but that doesn't change the fact that she shot a woman in cold blood. That she played her part in the mafia's game.

With her Uncle Damian just murdered, it's Kayla who should be stepping into his shoes. She's the natural leader the family needs—except she's never quite fit in. And in any case, the mob is no place for a woman.

Abandoned by the family and plagued by doubt, Kayla must finally decide where her allegiance lies. Can she continue to play the pawn, or is it time to cut ties with the mob for good?

"Turn-Key" is a new short story by J. Hickman, the writer and artist behind the web comic Morgens. Told in a voice that's in parts haunting, irreverent and sardonic, it follows a band of punks, rebels and mobsters through a journey to find common ground. Forced finally to decide who she can trust, Kayla is about to finish the growth she started years ago, when she first became the mafia's tool.

I cannot rave enough about "Turn-Key," or Morgens in general. J. Hickman's sense of voice, the thoroughness with which she explores her characters, and her impeccable artistic style make the Morgens universe one you won't want to leave. I'm flattered to have had the opportunity to work with her as a developmental editor on her latest projects. I hope you'll follow this link (or the one in the banner above!) to follow along as "Turn-Key" unfolds. The story updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so if you hurry over now you won't have far to go to catch up! You won't be sorry you did.

While you're there, be sure to check out J. Hickman's extraordinary design portfolio, 13 Avocados (ever wondered who designed this blog?). Seriously. When she gets big, you're gonna want to be able to say you knew her when.

Note: This story and the Morgens series as a whole is intended for teens and contains some content that may not be suitable for younger age groups.

50 in '11 Update: The Audacity of Hope

2011-02-04T08:00:00.011-05:00

The good news is that I'm still on track to make my goal of 50 books this year, given that I'm four books into my list and about four weeks into the year. The bad news is that I've lost the head start I got by finishing The Road so early. It's not that I didn't love The Audacity of Hope—I definitely did. But one of the reasons that I had to list nonfiction as one of my categories for this year is that, when it comes to nonfiction, I'm a love-'em-and-leave-'em kind of gal.

I often enjoy nonfiction. Reading is my favorite way to absorb information, and I do love to learn. Besides, good writing is always good writing, whether it's about true events or not. But, unlike with really good fiction, it's a rare piece of nonfiction that I can't walk away from at any time. Fiction keeps me reading to find out what happens next; in nonfiction, I have to motivate myself to go back to that well of information and keep drinking.

And on weeks like the past few, when everything seems to be spinning out of control, and I can barely keep up with where I'm supposed to be and when, and what I owe to people in the in-between hours? I am so not going to that well.

So I made my way through The Audacity of Hope slowly, but I nonetheless enjoyed every minute that I did spend reading. It probably won't surprise anyone who's listened to even one of my feminist/pro-diversity/liberal-as-all-get-out rants that I'm already a big fan of our president, but I was still floored by the fluidity of his prose and the depth of his thought on every issue. He finds compromise where radicals on both sides insist there can be none, and behind all of his thinking on even the most touchy issues is a calm sense of reason. Here's someone who really believes that all of humanity, and especially Americans, are called to do good in the world. Here's somebody who's willing to have a real discussion about how to do it, and to question his own assumptions. He made me question mine.

Next up, I think I'll grab The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson. I'm craving some short fiction, and I think the quick reads will help me get my nightly page count back up so I don't fall behind!

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Broadcasting with a Very Exciting Announcement!

2011-02-01T08:00:00.007-05:00

Sorry, Cats and Kittens and Writer Friends: there will be no post this week. But never fear: there is some good news!

On Saturday, April 16th, I will be participating in a panel on Publishing in the Digital Era at Baltimore's CityLit Festival. Here's a quick description of the panel:

E-books. Vooks. iPads. Technology is altering how we read and deliver literature. Co-sponsored by BackList, this timely panel, composed of local writers and publishing professionals, will explore and discuss the ever-changing face of publishing—and what it means to writers—as we move further into the digital era.

If you're in the Baltimore area on April 16th, be sure to drop by the Enoch Pratt Free Library's central branch for a full-day of author presentations, readings, panels, and networking opportunities. You'll hear from National Book Award winner Jaimy Gordon, my past professor (and totally butt-kicking novelist) Jessica Anya Blau, and more. Be sure to stop by the Fine Arts Department at 3:30 pm to participate in the panel discussion. It should be lots of fun!

CityLove 2011: Baltimore

2011-01-24T00:00:00.009-05:00

photo credit to Bawlmer Pixtures, Hon

Maybe you know of Baltimore as the resting place of Edgar Allen Poe or the birthplace of the National Anthem. Maybe you know of it as a hotbed of civil rights conflict from the musical Hairspray, or as the home of its writer and director, John Waters. Maybe you're a part of the kidlit community and you read about Baltimore in Nat Standiford's fabulous How to Say Goodbye in Robot. Or you might associate it with the violent drug trade depicted in the show The Wire. You might know it for its once-thriving port community, or for how that's expressed now in the city's reputation for delicious Maryland crab cakes (the best ones, by the way, can be had at G&M). Or maybe you'd recognize Baltimore for its quirky side, from the hons of Hampden to the lawn flamingos that litter our yards, porches and roofs.

Or maybe, like much of the world, you don't know much of anything about Baltimore at all.

For a city that's so often overlooked, Baltimore inspires surprising loyalty in those who call it home. It harbors a thriving community of artists, writers, do-it-yourself-ers, and students lured by the absurdly low cost of living and hooked on the city's unique atmosphere. These are just a few of my favorite things about the city:

People & Ideas

The Effervescent Collective is a young organization dedicated to bringing contemporary dance to Baltimore's inhabitants in an accessible, experiential way. The collective strives to bring dancers and non-dancers together to generate "sacred, high-energy movement and shared ideas." In their interactive performances, workshops and online community, the collective creates an ongoing creative dialogue in Baltimore through dance. (P.S. You can read about the collective's extraordinary founder, Lily Susskind, here.)

In its first year, Glass Mind Theatre was voted Baltimore's best new theater in Best of Baltimore 2010. Run by a group of Baltimore's best and brightest recent grads (including my awesome roommate—hi Sarah!), the company based its first performance on the ideas tweeted, Facebooked and emailed to the group's founders. In March, they'll perform Neighborhood 3, a critically acclaimed show about suburbia, gaming, and zombies.

I don't harbor any delusions about my musical expertise; I'm about as knowledgeable as a brick when it comes to the names of band members or the newest trends in music. But 89.7 WTMD, Baltimore's listener-supported radio station, reminds me how much I love the stuff. And between Unsigned Baltimore and Detour: the Folk Roots & World Music Hour, their shows keep me up-to-date on the music scene in Baltimore and around the world.

Publications

The Urbanite is, in my opinion, one of the best magazines of its kind, nation-wide. The free magazine features outstanding writing on thoughtful topics like innovation, family, and sustainability. The always well-designed publication also makes room for local artists and writers to share their stories. I can't help but devour the new issue each month, and I'd kill to have a conversation with those writers and editors.

Speaking of some of the best writers in Baltimore, Kevin Griffen Moreno made it onto my radar this past year with his blog, Unsung Baltimore. Kevin is not only a talented writer and photographer, but also a devoted advocate of the people of Baltimore City; in addition to serving the city through his position at the Baltimore Community Foundation, Kevin gives credit to the extraordinary talents and ideas of Baltimoreans in his fabulous blog posts.

Evening Red Press is one of Baltimore's newest literary arts magazines, off to a strong start with three online editions, all showcasing some of Baltimore's finest multimedia art and writing.

In contrast, Smartish Pace is one of Baltimore's oldest literary magazines. I have a special attachment to the magazine since I began my literary career as an intern for the magazine in 2006, and I've discovered some of my favorite poets, from Lynnell Edwards to Maurice Manning, in its pages.

Places

When I was very young, my parents used to bring me into the city for shows and soccer games, and I would stare at the glowing top of the Bromo Seltzer Tower with wonder. Raised on The Lord of the Rings, my seven-year-old self was convinced that the blue light at the top of the tower was a spell cast by the wizard who I was sure lived there. Though it might not be home to a wizard, The Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower does house dozens of Baltimore artists in its studio space.

Bad Decisions has made a name for itself in Baltimore and on the Food Network for its Bacon and Beer Happy Hour, but many of the city's inhabitants knew and loved the bar long before the first B&BHH. Don't be deterred by the bar's divey appearance; itsowner, John Reusing, is one of the city's most creative and skilled bartenders. His original drink recipes, scrawled in a drink-wrinkled marble notebook, stand testament to that fact—where else can you get a Pickletini, a Bloody Mary with crab juice in it, or (one of my favorites) a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster?

The first of its kind, The American Visionary Arts Museum calls Baltimore home and showcases the work of self-trained artists, from PostSecret's Frank Warren to"The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. More an adventure than a museum, the AVAM celebrates creativity in the odd and overlooked, the secret work of those compelled to create, and the crafts and tools of people who haven't had the option of arts training. The museum's supporters also celebrate the quirkiness of their mission each year with Baltimore's Kinetic Sculpture Race, an event you have to see to believe.

Now it's your turn, Writer Friends! Celebrate your city! Post what you love about your city today, and then post a link to it in the comments for this post. Let's take a tour of the world via CityLove!

50 in '11 Update: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

2011-01-19T07:00:00.010-05:00

What I liked most about Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi's Printz-Award-winning sci-fi novel for young adults, was its characters. Nailer is just the sort of smart, good-hearted hero we can follow from a post-global warming slum to a clipper ship on the high seas. His cohorts, Pima and Nita, are both distinct and strong women (and, it's worth noting, both are women of color who don't come off as token diversity picks). And the story's most threatening villain, Nailer's father, is an incredible piece of character work―he's one of the creepiest literary villains I've ever read, and while he is almost entirely evil, he nonetheless never seems one-dimensional and thus fabricated. The fact that Richard Lopez is horrifying but still human makes Nailer's fear of the man―and ultimately his need to break free of his influence―something to which the reader can relate, and ultimately gives the adventure story some real depth.

Ultimately, the transformation that Nailer needs to make in this story is not from ship breaker to "swank," but rather from the "Lucky Boy" who runs from his father's beatings to the young man who is finally able to stand up to his father. By the book's end, Nailer will have to confront not only his father, but also his fear of growing up to become another Richard Lopez.

That theme is one I've seen exhibited in countless narratives, from novels to films and even works of nonfiction. I first started thinking about it when I read Melvin Burgess's Smack (published in the U.K. as Junk) for a course on subversive children's lit. Like Nailer in Ship Breaker, the hero in Smack, Tar, runs away to escape his father's beatings. But he never succeeds in confronting his father and putting the man's legacy behind him. Rather, as Tar's father tells the reader towards the end of the very dark novel, Tar becomes just like the man from whom he fled; he hits his own wife. The novel seems to warn about what can happen when a boy fails to confront (or, in a psychological sense, "kill") his father's legacy; he fails to become more than another representation of it.

I'd venture to say that one of the myths or beliefs our society constructs around the ideas of boyhood, manhood, and coming of age stories is that a boy must overcome or kill his father in order to become a man himself. Perhaps that belief came about naturally in a monarchical and inheritance-based society, in which a son literally did have to wait for (or, I'm sure in some cases, cause) his father's death in order to come into his own power, and has stuck with us through the dissolution of those ways of governing and transferring property. Maybe it's something even more deep-set and psychological. Whatever the case, it crops up in ancient literature like the story of Oedipus, it's noted by Freud and other psychologists, and it's still being pointed out today.

But noticing this trend, especially in children's books, makes me wonder: is there a female version of this myth? Are girls' coming of age stories similarly haunted by the need to overcome an oppressive matron? Could we argue that the evil stepmothers in so many fairy tales are an embodiment of the feminine version of this myth? Are there any more contemporary examples?

In Neil Gaiman's Coraline, the title character must overcome her wicked "other mother" in order to return home to her true family and mend her relationship with her father. But I'm not convinced this is really the same myth. To me, the unconscious myths at work in Coraline seem Electral, and I'm not sure that the sexual component of that myth is matched in the male version I've described. Though I group the Oedipus myth in with my examples of stories in which boys overcome their fathers to become men, I still find that these stories aren't primarily about a fight for sexual dominance. Even fairy tales seem to have more of a sexual component; Snow White incurs her stepmother's wrath by being more beautiful and desirable, and Cinderella's stepmother can be seen as hating the girl for being so beloved of her father. In contrast, sexual competitiveness seems to play a secondary role, if any, in the conflicts between sons and their fathers in literature.

Am I wrong? Have I missed books that show the feminine version of this conflict? Let me know!

Announcing the CityLove Project 2011!

2011-01-17T07:00:00.010-05:00

Writer Friends! Most of you probably know that I am from Baltimore, and that I'm fiercely, passionately, loudly in love with my city.

This past weekend I attended Create Baltimore, a participant-created conference for artists, entrepreneurs and techies who are passionate about and committed to making this vibrant city an even better place. The awesome people I met, the three fabulous round-table sessions I attended, and the overall atmosphere of intelligence and excitement reaffirmed what I already knew: that I live in a darn cool city.

I was also lucky to meet Kevin Griffin Moreno, whose writing has impressed and inspired me for ages, and who epitomizes so much of what I love about this city's inhabitants: that they're not only brilliant, but also committed to doing good; that they see beyond the sometimes unpleasant aspects of this city and inspire confidence in positive change for themselves and the rest of Baltimore; and that they love to celebrate this city and each other.

And this reminds me of you, Writer Friends! Because you make the publishing community awesome! Because you love to celebrate your fellow writers! And because you probably live in really cool places too, all over the country!

So a week from today, on January 24th, I'm going to tell you all about the greatest places, people and ideas in this city. I'll post links to my favorite arts organizations, cool grassroots initiatives, local businesses and publications, and all-around awesome individuals in Baltimore.

And here's the cool part: I want you to do the same. Celebrate your city! Tell us all who you admire, what cool ideas are taking hold in your area, and what makes you call your city home! And once you've done so, post a link in the comments to my post so we can all celebrate each other's cities!

Let's give credit to our local movers and shakers! Let's explore some places we've never been! Let's learn from each other's cities, and find more ways to make ours awesome! I can't wait. See you next week!*

*The Why Write?^TM series will return right after this brief interlude, promise! Look for the last post in the series, all about literary fiction, in two weeks.

50 in '11 Update: Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

2011-01-13T07:00:00.004-05:00

Though I've kept up with feminist and activist articles online (especially those related to the book business), it's been a while since I sat down and read a serious book on gender or feminist theory. Whipping Girl manages to do both in a series of essays explaining the trans experience, the way the brain and body work together to create gender, and the way society (often wrongly) perceives transexuals.

I didn't buy every one of Serano's points, but I did find her take as a geneticist and a doctorate of biology fascinating. While the differentiation between "gender" (psychological) and "sex" (physical) is becoming widely accepted in America, Serano argues that it's not enough—that a person's gender identity is made up of an even more complex combination of unconscious inclinations, instincts, socialized behaviors, inherent traits, and more. I'd recommend her book for the vocabulary she introduces, if nothing else. Armed with the terms Serano introduces and explains, one can begin to see how we see such a wide variety of gender inclinations and expressions in people of all sexes—how there can (and should naturally) be feminine men, masculine women, androgynes, and those on the trans spectrum (in a whole range of ways and for a variety of reasons).

From the perspective of a rabid consumer (and often a builder) of stories and media, I was also fascinated by Serano's deconstruction of presentations of trans women in the media—specifically, of how they are almost always depicted in the act of "putting on" their femininity, a selective viewpoint which serves to emphasize its supposed artificiality, perpetuating the idea that no one sexed male at birth can possibly experience genuine femaleness.

Finally, I particularly appreciated Serano's take on feminism. As someone who has had the experience of observing how others treat her when they believe her to be a man and when they believe her to be a woman, she's in the unique position of being able to make some very reliable judgments of how traditional and oppositional sexism are still at work in our society. Her description of the change in the way the same words and actions were received when she began to live as a woman rather than a man was fascinating, and a call to action for anyone who believes that men and women are no longer treated as unequal. She makes the point that, even in cases in which women are not discriminated against, femininity is devalued. She argues that we must change society's bias against femininity, whether expressed by men or by women, if we are to make the world a better place for people of all genders, sexes and gender expressions.

I'm heading back into the realm of fiction with this week's book, the 2011 Printz Award winner: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. I'm enthralled already!

WHY WRITE?: Historical Fiction

2011-01-11T07:00:00.002-05:00

I’m not going to lie—this week’s WHY WRITE?^TM installment was a real challenge for me. When I took a look at the voting for this series and saw how popular historical fiction was proving itself to be, my first thought was that I couldn’t possibly do the topic justice. What do I know about writing historical fiction? What do I even know about reading it?

To quell my anxiety I turned to research, seeking out authors’ accounts of how and why they write historical fiction in hopes of justifying my own speculation on the matter. The articles I found helped inform and guide my thinking about historical fiction.

And then I began to realize that I do know something about historical fiction. True, it’s not one of those genres that I instinctively seek out—more often, it finds me. And, in the way that truly successful historical fiction can, it made its way into my heart without ever striking me with the thought that I was enjoying history (something which would have horrified my sixteen-year-old self, and which surprises me even today). And in examining what made me, a somewhat forgetful young woman with an aversion to date-memorization and name-recitation, fall in love with books like Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner or Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains, I think I’ve come up with some answers to the question of why you might want to write historical fiction:

Because you want to explore an unfamiliar world. In a way, your reasons for writing historical fiction might not be so different from another writer’s reasons for tackling speculative fiction. It gives writers and readers alike the chance to experience another way of life vicariously. With the speed at which technology advances, political power changes hands, and trends come and go, the past can sometimes seem even more remote and unimaginable than any sci-fi universe—so historical writers, like authors of speculative fiction, are in the business of introducing their readers to new worlds. That opportunity is alluring to writers and readers alike; as Katherine Paterson says of her historical fiction, “…If I wrote only about what I know, I would never write. I write to find out.”

Because you love to learn, and you love to teach. But, unlike speculative fiction, historical fiction is firmly grounded in the rules of the real world—perhaps more so than any other fictional genre, since the events of the past are already written. For those who love research, historical fiction offers a chance to put that passion to use. What’s more, it can offer writers a way of sharing that passion with others. Events that may never have piqued a reader’s interest when encountered in a history textbook come to life when presented in the form of a story. And once that story takes root in a reader’s mind, it can plant seeds of curiosity that drive the reader to explore history all on his or her own.

Because you want to get to know not only the “what” of history, but also the “who.” One of the most powerful strengths of historical fiction is the ability it has to put a human, relatable face to events that seem far-removed from us now. Historical fiction gives writers a chance to explore long-gone times and places and to meet characters they never could have confronted otherwise—characters with whom both readers and writers can connect, even across the boundaries of time and culture. It’s no coincidence that, despite the fact that I count some works of historical fiction among my favorite books, I couldn’t immediately call to mind any that I’d read. When I think about The Kite Runner, I think of it first as a story about people, and second as a story about the conflicts in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the relationship that I built with the novel’s characters spurred my interest in that time periods and the conflicts that surrounded it, and I began to see the people I’d read about in the paper and in textbooks as individuals, each with their own story.

Because you want to give a voice to someone who hasn’t had it. I see a lot of subversive potential in that power to put a human face on history. Every society has, somewhere in its history, a group of people whose stories have not been heard. Sometimes social and economic factors (like the fact that slaves were not taught to write, or that the lower classes often lacked the leisure time required to do so) keep certain minorities from sharing their stories. In other cases, their stories are intentionally rewritten or overshadowed by the voices of the majority, significantly altering the way we learn and understand history. We’ve all heard that the “winners” in any conflict are the ones who get to write the history of it. However, a writer of historical fiction can subvert that trend. Laurie Halse Anderson managed it in Chains, a novel in which she featured an African-American slave girl (someone whose viewpoint, I’d argue, is thrice-suppressed—for her race, her gender, and her age). When done respectfully, empathetically, and often, imagining history from the perspectives of those who are or were historically oppressed can give a much-needed voice to their struggle.

Because you need to make sense of the world we live in. The statement that we must learn from our history or else be doomed to repeat it may be a cliché, but it’s nonetheless true that, as Katherine Paterson says, “History gives us a pair of powerful eyeglasses with which to examine our own Times.” Sometimes as writers and readers we aren’t yet ready to confront the horrors we experience within our lifetimes—whether that means terrorism, war, or the prejudice we witness in our own society. But we can understand them better, and we can comment upon them or experience much-needed catharsis from them, through the lens of history. Ron Rash says it best in Publishers Weekly: “That may be the best that any work of historical fiction has to offer—not just to its author, but, more importantly, to its readers—a chance to grapple with the mysteries and complexities of the past, in hopes of seeing the present a little clearer.”

Now it’s your turn to educate me. Readers and writers of historical fiction, what draws you to the genre? What are the strengths that I missed? Do you disagree with any of the ones I listed? Let me know in comments!

WHY WRITE?: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction

2011-01-05T08:00:00.002-05:00

Thanks for waiting patiently (more patiently than I did, that’s for sure) for me to get my computer back up and running so the Why Write?^TM series could return! I’m back in action now with a shiny new hard drive, and I can’t wait to hear all of your thoughts on speculative fiction.

You probably know that I love a good piece of speculative fiction, whether it’s a short story by Neil Gaiman, a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, or a TV show like Battlestar Galactica. I’ve written and read my fair share of literary criticism on speculative fiction, and recently had my socks rocked off by the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle (which I highly recommend, if ever you’re in the area). Recently The Rejectionist got us all psyched up with her awesome Feminist Science Fiction Week, and it seems the book world still hasn’t run out of things to say about fantasy since the last Harry Potter book was released more than three years ago. It’s clear that speculative fiction has made a huge impression on us in recent years, so this is an area I’m particularly excited to explore. So with no further adieu—why write science fiction and fantasy?

Because you want to be part of a community. From the Trekkie to the Renaissance Faire regular, fans of science fiction and fantasy are a breed of their own. They devour every piece of speculative fiction they can get their hands on, they gather in rock-concert-crowd numbers for conventions, signings, and midnight movie showings or marathons. As readers, they tend towards a religious devotion to the science fiction and fantasy section of the bookstore. They know the cover clichés and spine fonts to look for, and they’ll approach new and established authors alike with the same eager, open mind. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more devoted fan base.

Because you want to get away. It’s no surprise that science fiction and fantasy tend to see an uptick in sales during times of political unrest, war, or economic strife. To some extent, all reading is about escapism—the chance to experience the unknown through another’s eyes for a few hundred pages—but nowhere is this more true than in speculative fiction. In sci-fi and fantasy we find an escape from the monotony (or downright unpleasantness, in some time periods) of everyday life. I’d guess that, in large part, the genre gains such devoted fans because the worlds it imagines, with all their wondrous possibilities, are positively addictive.

Because you want to channel your other passions into your writing. J.R.R. Tolkien was a philologist and linguist whose first job was with the Oxford English Dictionary; C.S. Lewis was an influential lay theologist; and James Tiptree Jr. (whose real name was Alice B. Sheldon) was a photointelligence expert for the U.S. Army Air Force and a doctor of experimental psychology. Great science fiction and fantasy has been written by biologists, astronomers, physicists, psychologists, philosophers, mathematicians, political theorists and more, and for good reason. The challenge of inventing an entirely new world forces writers to draw upon all of their areas of expertise, and many writers take delight in the challenge. For many who write speculative fiction, part of what makes the genre so much fun is the chance to invent a new language for the world’s mythological creatures to speak; to describe the properties of an imagined world’s extraordinary flora and fauna; to accurately depict the physics of spacecraft motion; or to create an entirely new social structure, government and religion. Writers and readers of speculative fiction take delight in finding their other passions woven into the stories’ plots.

Because you want to take advantage of a blank slate. But there are more reasons to want to create a new society than simply to be able to weave your own passions into its structure. Every writer, regardless of his or her genre of choice, has to establish the rules that govern their story’s world. These rules can be as basic as gravity or as complex as socioeconomic class, and they often go unnoticed by the reader unless they are unexpectedly broken, but they are nonetheless crucial to a story’s believability. Most writers are stuck with the rules that govern the world that we live in—all except, of course, for writers of speculative fiction. Because they require the author to build a new world and society, science fiction and fantasy offer writers a chance to work from a clean slate and create whatever rules will best serve their story.

Because you have something to say… The chance to create their own worlds allows writers to critique the world we live in by calling rules we take for granted into question. In science fiction and fantasy, people of color can be in the majority; homosexuality can be typical while heterosexuals are considered unnatural; gender and sex can be fluid or altogether changeable; religion can be re-imagined or re-interpreted—the possibilities are endless. By presenting a different social structure as normal and fully functional, these stories call attention to the constructed nature of our own society and force us to confront our own learned prejudices. Writers like Ursula K. LeGuin, Philip Pullman, James Tiptree Jr., Octavia Butler, and more have created functional new societies in which the rules of our society are turned on their heads. In doing so, they have encouraged readers to question the beliefs they’ve inherited from the world around them, open their minds to all kinds of diversity, and imagine a more ideal world.

…And you can’t always just come out and say it. Because of their incredible potential for subversiveness, science fiction and fantasy are often highly political and relevant to social and political climates of the time and society in which they were written. Often, the best works of speculative fiction subtly satirize or comment upon contemporary events. George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World expressed fears about increasingly tyrannical leadership and the dehumanization of a society dependent upon modern technology; more recently, M.T. Anderson’s Feed expressed these same fears in a more updated form, featuring telepathic instant messaging and horrific pollution in a reflection of contemporary society’s obsessions. One of the things I love most about Battlestar Galactica is that it aired in the post-9/11 era and asked us to question issues of patriotism, fear, and our assumptions about or own humanity and that of those we treat as “others.” Episodes containing questionable election tactics or a character’s plea for a government that doesn’t make its decisions based on fear were startlingly relevant in the Bush era and remain so as the war in Iraq continues. In many ways the imagined-world context of science fiction and fantasy allows writers to make political statements that might otherwise be suppressed. And I think because there's a tendency in some lofty literary circles to write speculative fiction off as "too genre," it gets away with more than we give it credit for.

Do you agree? Disagree? Maybe there are other genres that do some of these things better. Maybe I missed a few good reasons. Let me know in comments!

50 in '11 Update: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2011-01-02T14:55:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. Are you off to a flying start on your resolutions? We’re going to rock more socks than ever in 2011, aren’t we, Writer Friends? Yes we are!

Speaking of sock-rocking and resolutions, I’m off to a good start on my 50 in ’11 book list. I meant to make Cormac McCarthy’s The Road my first book for 2011, but I unplugged (somewhat involuntarily) over the holidays and tore through roughly a book a day, finishing The Road way before New Year’s Eve.

What struck me most about the book was its immersiveness; I quickly picked up on the main characters’ constant fear of ambush, and found myself looking over my shoulder in the dark long after I’d put it down, and locking my bedroom door at night.

In addition to being well-written in that regard, the book also included some gorgeously poetic (though not exactly upbeat) passages:

“There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” (46)

“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.” (110)

I particularly like the book’s closing passage, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. If you have the chance to pick up a copy, be sure to read the whole thing.

I’m working my way through Whipping Girl by Julia Serano now, and it’s fabulous so far. Thoughts on that soon!

Ready, Set, Read!

2010-12-30T09:00:00.002-05:00

2011 is almost upon us, and that means it's time for me to start my 50 in '11 challenge. Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions; I've tried to take as many as possible, and of course my reading list for 2012 and beyond continues to grow thanks to your awesomeness. I'll keep you all updated on my readerly adventures in 2011, and I want to hear about yours as well!

Here's the final list for 2011:

feminism, gender studies and queer theory
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
The Feminist Promise by Christine Stansell
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman

graphic novels
Blankets by Craig Thompson
From Hell by Alan Moore
The Sandman, Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Maus by Art Spiegelman

classics I haven't read yet
The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

books I would normally scoff at
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Rampant by Diana Peterfreund (I know, I hear it's exactly my cup of tea, but killer unicorns, really?)
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (I don't know why I scoff. Maybe I just hate movie-poster book covers.)
A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell Hamilton

contemporary literary fiction
A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

books I bought but haven't read yet
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls (okay, I admit, this is a bit of a guilty pleasure, and it's not even out yet... but I worked on it as an intern, so I already know I'll buy it, and I won't be able to wait to read it!)
The Naming by Alison Croggon
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

books with people of color on their covers
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Huntress by Malinda Lo
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

literary journals and collections of poetry or short stories
War Dances by Sherman Alexie
What is this Thing Called Love by Kim Addonizio
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
First Lines

genre literature (sci-fi/fantasy)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacugalupi
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee

trade nonfiction
The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson
The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy by Jason Eberl
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar

The question now is: which book do I read first? And what book are you reading to kick off the new year? Let me know in comments!

The WHY WRITE? Series Will Be Back Next Week!

2010-12-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

Dear Authorlings,

I'm sorry to say that there shall be no post this week because:

1) If you're like any sensible publishing nerd, you're not at your desk this week anyway. You're off frolicking in the snow or celebrating your any-denominational holidays with your family-and-friend-type relations. Or with your favorite fictional characters--it's okay, I know how that works.

2) I am not always a sensible publishing nerd, exactly, but I'll be away from my desk this week one way or another because I've managed to crash my hard drive. You should be sensible right now and back your hard drive up, especially if you're an awesome writerly type and you have The Results of Your Hard Labor on your hard drive.

3) Let's face it: it's probably good for me to take two whole weeks to figure out how to say something more about the awesomeness of speculative fiction after The Rejectionist melted our faces with her Feminist Science Fiction Week in August. You're welcome.

Be back next week with more of the WHY WRITE?^TM series, plus exciting updates on the 50 in '11 challenge! If you are really, truly stuck at your desk this week without something awesome to read, try this fabulous interview with St. Martin's Press Editor Vicki Lame over at YA Highway. There's something for writers, readers and industry hopefuls!

WHY WRITE?: Young Adult Fiction

2010-12-22T15:08:00.006-05:00

Thanks to everyone who voted on genres for the Why Write?^TM series last week! Voting is still open, so if you haven’t chimed in yet, head on over now to put in your two cents.

As for how the voting played out last week: literary fiction took the lead, followed by a tie between Young Adult fiction, sci-fi and fantasy (or speculative fiction), and historical fiction (who knew I had such history buffs among my readers?!). Romance followed that with just a few votes, and westerns and mysteries received a single vote each. I’m excited to dive in on those top four, and if you guys really like the Why Write?^TM series, let me know and I’ll tackle the extra challenge of dissecting romances as well.

I’m going to jump in at the middle here because today’s post flows pretty naturally from my recent post on why character transformation works so well in YA fiction. So—why write YA?

Because you want a welcoming audience. Teenagers who read do so voraciously. They read in school and out of it. They flock to blogs and message boards, they review the books they read on Amazon and in their own blogs, and they spend hours discussing their favorite books with their friends. From the droves of teens who dress up as characters from The Hunger Games or the Harry Potter series for Halloween, to those who flock to communities of writers and readers like John and Hank Green’s massive posse of Nerdfighters, to those who, hungry for more of their favorite characters, take to reading and writing fan fiction, I don’t know of any audience that more actively interacts with their books. Writers of YA, by and large, love to interact with their audiences—and how could they not, in the face of such devoted readers?

Because your readers need you. Middle school and high school can be nasty, and teens both yearn for connection and desperately fear putting themselves out there. I think that’s a big part of why so many teens become ardent readers. Like everyone, they want to open a book and see someone they recognize come to life on the pages. But even more than the adults who read, they need that character who’s just like them—to know they’re not alone, to know they’re not as strange as they feel, to know that if it’s bad, it can still get better. Affirmation and hope can be hard to find in the bitter wilderness of childhood, but a great YA author can give that to a teen.

Because you want to write something deep… Teens are smart and hungry to critique the world around them, including the books they read. Teens often get a bum rap for being addicted to video games, TV and Facebook, but the majority of teens I know are more tuned into the world than a lot of adults. Unlike so many tired nine-to-fivers, they can spend all day thinking at school and still not be ready to shut their brains off and veg when they get home. They’re not daunted by complex plot structures or layers of meaning, and they’re intelligent enough to understand and expand upon complex themes. If you have something serious to say, you might actually be more likely to be heard by a teenager than by an adult.

…But you also want to have fun with it. At the same time, teens are brutally honest and quick to call bullshit. They love to be blown away by a book’s deeper meaning, but they’re not as likely to put up with unnecessary frills. Books for teens are often more fun to read than adult books, without sacrificing the complex themes you find in literary fiction. Compare The Hunger Games or Feed to A Brave New World or 1984 and you’ve got similar themes being expressed in a more fast-paced, fun format. No one ever said that, just because you have something to say, you can’t have fun saying it.

Because you want to change the world. Teens are passionate, political and idealistic. Just as they’re eager to think critically about the world around them, they’re hungry for a cause to believe in—and, as Robyn pointed out a few weeks ago, they're quick to act on their ideals. If you’ve got a message, you might be better off imparting it on the young than on the old. Adults can be jaded or may have already decided exactly where they stand on an issue, but teenagers are still learning all they can, deciding what they think, and committing themselves to ideals. What’s more, teens are just a few years away from inheriting power. Given the right ideals, the next generation might be able to live better than we ever have.

Because you want to change a person. The books we read as teens are often the ones we remember best and love most fiercely, and for good reason. They determine the people we become, the ideals we adhere to, and the way we view the world. There’s a reason that the fight for people of color on book covers and for diversity of gender, sexuality and race in literature has been fought so much more loudly in the kid-lit community than in the world of adult fiction—we recognize that readers of YA are still forming their worldviews, and that books play a powerful role in that growth. The worlds teens experience when they read will help them, whether they are conscious of it or not, to decide what’s right or wrong and what’s normal or abnormal in the world around them. In some ways, picking up a pen to write for teens is (as one of the programmers in my office would say) your Spiderman moment: with great power comes great responsibility. When you write a book that hits home for a teenager, you help to form the belief system he or she will take into adulthood. You can literally have a hand in making that teen the person he or she is becoming.

Do you agree? Disagree? Maybe there are other genres that do some of these things better. Maybe I missed a few good reasons. Let me know in comments!

Introducing the 'Why Write?' Series!

2010-12-15T22:10:00.006-05:00

So, a number of things in my life right now—from last week’s blog post (Why YA?) to a trip I made to the Science Fiction Museum (a.k.a. nerd paradise) in Seattle last month—have got me thinking a lot about why specific areas of fiction work, and when they work best. So I’m introducing a new feature on this blog for the next couple of weeks: the Why Write?^TM series!

In the series, I’ll explore a wide range of genres and try to dissect them to get at their inherent strengths. Of course I’ll talk about Young Adult fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy (how could I stop myself?), but I’m also interested in taking a look at some of the genres I’m not as quick to pick up. I hope this can be a chance for us to have a conversation about why you like the books you like, as well as an opportunity to learn about why writers choose their genres—because genre is a choice as much as it is story driven, and because the framework in which we set our plots does as much to determine their meaning as does any other element of writing.

In the interest of having the best conversations possible, I want to know what genres you most want to hear about. What genres do you love? Which ones are you curious about, or which ones have you thought of trying? Which ones puzzle you—which ones make you ask yourself who thought that up? If you want to vote for something you don’t see up here, hit me up with it in comments.

I don’t really feel like having rules tonight, so I’m just going to be honest and say I’ll pick the top however-many-I-feel-like to discuss. So get voting!

Why YA? Are Teens Just Better at Saving the World?

2010-12-08T08:00:00.006-05:00

In response to my post about character transformations, Julie commented that, more often than not, the characters she sees featured in epic fantasy novels are teens. She also asked several good questions:

Obviously writing about teenagers has a lot of merit as far as all the physical/emotional/maturity changes people face at that stage in life, but can character transformations be just as effective when the character is older? And is it the same for someone in their 20s-30s as it might be for someone who is 40-50 or 60-70? Is there something else that makes adolescence such a special (and popular) time to showcase in a novel of epic proportions? Is this a recent trend?

It's possible that this seems like a recent trend because (1) Young Adult (or YA) fiction is a relatively new thing in and of itself, with publishers having only started to market specifically to teenagers in the last 40 or so years, and the genre has been growing ever since, leading us to (2), the fact that the Young Adult market is booming right now, while a lot of other markets for fiction remain somewhat stagnant due to the recession, changes in the industry and other miscellaneous Doom and Gloom. But I don't think the trend Julie noticed is a fluke—there are some very real advantages to featuring teenage characters in your novel, and/or to marketing it to teens.

I do think that character transformations can and often are handled extremely well in novels intended for and about adults. The Kite Runner is a great example. Though a good portion of the novel is narrated in retrospect and some of its most important moments feature Amir and Hassan as children, Amir’s transformation does not occur in childhood. In fact, he very deliberately avoids it until well into his adulthood. Having lived with and loathed his cowardice and selfishness for years, it is the adult Amir who finally transforms into a man willing to accept the personal cost of standing up for others. Despite that, I think that the emotional journey of that novel is every bit as effective as that of a well-written YA novel.

But I do think that YA as a genre has its inherent benefits when it comes to staging an important character transformation or an epic journey. I often see novels for adults, like Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill, taking advantage of those benefits by allowing a childhood story of transformation to be narrated by an older character who looks back on his or her youth. In both books, the narratives allow their readers to feel the immediacy of the characters’ growth the adulthood, but the ever-present knowledge that the tales are being related by characters who have had the opportunity to reflect on these experiences keeps them solidly in the realm of adult fiction.

So what are YA’s inherent advantages when it comes to building change?

Julie nailed one of the major ones, which is that, quite simply, teenagers are already changing drastically. On top of changing physically and emotionally with puberty, teens find themselves outside of the supervision of adults for the first time ever and begin discovering their own power to act independently. This is one of the defining characteristics of YA literature in comparison with books for younger readers. Often Middle Grade novels focus on conflicts which are confined, like the characters themselves, to a family unit—or, in the case of Middle Grade novels in which the characters do go on an epic quest, like Gregor the Overlander or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the adventure cannot begin until the adults are out of the picture. Teens, however, are typically given more freedom and are quick to begin pushing boundaries.

Secondly, it’s a fascinating time to write about, because when faced with a problem teens don’t have the benefit of experience to draw upon. As a character in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas says, “Bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' it for the first time.” Teens experience failure after failure and, for the first time in their lives, they aren’t protected from it. And whereas adults often have the experience to recognize plans that are doomed to fail, and enough cynicism not to pin all their hopes to their next plan of attack, teens are passionate, often impulsive, and extraordinarily resilient—so with each new approach to an obstacle, they throw themselves into the fight, certain that this new approach will change everything. All those idealistic forward motions and devastating failures are incredible devices for building tension, and teenagers’ transformations are usually all the more intense for the fervor with which they approach every challenge.

With all that boundary-pushing and newfound independence, teens are also discovering the consequences—both good and bad—of their actions. They keenly feel the importance of everything they do, from how they dress to where they sit in the cafeteria. Plunged into a social hierarchy which is quick to remind them of any trespasses, most teens become hyper-aware of their every action as a choice made within and critiqued by that hierarchy. And every action and emotion within that environment is heightened, dramatic. Maybe the teenage years seem like such an ideal setting for an epic adventure because they are a time at which every challenge we face really does seem epic, every love feels like true love, and every obstacle seems like it could be the last.

And I think the realization of a social hierarchy, coupled with that newfound independence, does something else powerful—it awakens in teens a constant awareness of a world that is larger than them. Up until their teenage years, almost all of their choices and actions are filtered through the adults around them before reaching the outside world. With their newfound freedoms, teens are just discovering that their choices can create change in the world around them, and they take to that like wildfire. Every teen seems to be an activist.

So teens aren’t just changing themselves—they’re changing the worlds around themselves, they’re actively looking for change (and they fervently believe in it), and they’re molded by each of their endeavors. These are juicy, defining years, ripe for transformation. How we deal with the conflicts, challenges and heartbreaks we face as teens determines the adults we become—and who doesn’t want to take part in recreating that experience?

Questions? Have your own theories as to why this trend exists? Let me know in the comments!